CHAPTER VIII.

LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE OF THE NOMINATION AT

THE

ST. LOUIS.

Democratic Convention met in St. Louis on the 27th of June, 1876. Mr. Henry Watterson, of Kentucky, was temporary chairman. General John A. McClernand, of Illinois, was made permanent chairman. On the first ballot Mr. Tilden received 4034 votes, and Mr. Hendricks 133 votes, for the Presidency. On the second ballot Mr. Tilden received 508 votes; and on the motion of Pennsylvania, seconded by Indiana, the nomination was made unanimous. The question of the nominee for Vice-Presidency was soon disposed of. The names of Henry B. Payne, of Ohio, and William R. Morrison, of Illinois, came prominently before the Convention, but the universal feeling was in favor of Mr. Hendricks. He received 730 votes out of 738 votes on the first ballot. His nomination was then made unanimous, amid the greatest enthusiasm. In due course he issued the following letter of acceptance:

LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE.

GENTLEMEN: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication, in which you have formally notified me of my nomination by the National Democratic Convention at St. Louis as their candidate for the office of Vice-President of the United States. It is a nomination which I had neither expected nor desired; and yet I recognize and appreciate the high honor done me by the convention. The choice of such a body, pronounced with such unusual unanimity, and accompanied with so generous an expression of esteem and confidence, ought to outweigh all merely personal desires and preferences of my own. It is with this feeling, and I trust also from a deep sense of public duty, that I now accept the nomination, and shall abide the judgment of my countrymen.

It would have been impossible for me to accept the nomination if I could not heartily indorse the platform of the convention. I am gratified, therefore, to be able unequivocally to declare that I agree in the principles, approve the policies, and sympathize with the purposes enunciated in that platform.

The institutions of our country have been sorely tried by the exigencies of civil war, and, since the peace, by a selfish and corrupt management of public affairs, which has shamed us before civilized mankind. By unwise and partial legislation every industry and interest of the people have been made to suffer; and in the executive departments of the government dishonesty, rapacity and venality, have debauched the public service. Men known to be unworthy have been promoted, while others have been degraded for fidelity to official duty. Public office has been made the means of private profit, and the country has been offended to see a class of men who boast the friendship of the sworn protectors of the State amassing fortunes by defrauding the public treasury, and by corrupting the servants of the people. In such a crisis of the history of the country I rejoice that the convention at St. Louis has so nobly raised the standard of reform. Nothing can be well with us or with our affairs until the public conscience, shocked by the enormous evils and abuses which prevail, shall have demanded and compelled an unsparing reformation of our national Administration, "in its head and in its members." In such a reformation the removal of a single officer, even the President, is comparatively a trifling matter, if the system which he represents, and which has fostered him as he has fostered it, is suffered to remain. The President alone must not be made the scape-goat for the enormities of the system which infects the public service and threatens the destruction of our institutions. In some respects I hold that the present Executive has been the victim rather than the author of that vicious system. Congressional and party leaders have been stronger than the President. No one man could have created it, and the removal of no one man can amend it. It is thoroughly corrupt, and must be swept remorselessly away by the selection of a government composed of elements entirely new and pledged to radical reform.

The first work of reform must evidently be the restoration of the normal operation of the Constitution of the United States, with all its amendments. The necessities of war cannot be pleaded in a time of peace; the right of local self-government as guaranteed by the Constitution of the Union must be everywhere restored, and the centralized (almost personal) imperialism which has been practiced must be done away, or the first principles of the republic will be lost.

REPEAL OF THE RESUMPTION CLAUSE.

Our financial system of expedients must be reformed. Gold and silver are the real standard of values. and our national currency will not be a perfect medium of exchange until it shall be convertible at the pleasure of the holder. As I have heretofore said, no one desires a return to specie payments more earnestly than I do; but I do not believe that it will or can be reached in harmony with the interests of the people by artificial measures for the contraction of the currency, any more than I believe that wealth or permanent prosperity can be created by an inflation of the currency. The laws of finance cannot be disregarded with impunity. The financial policy of the government, if indeed it deserves the name of policy at all, has been in disregard of those laws, and therefore has disturbed commercial and business confidence, as well as hindered a return to specie payments. One feature of that policy was the resumption clause of the act of 1875, which has embarrassed the country by the anticipation of a compulsory resumption, for which no preparation was made, and without any assurance that it would be practicable. The repeal of that clause is necessary, that the natural operation of financial laws may be restored, that the business of the country may be relieved from its disturbing and depressing influence, and that a return to specie payments may be facilitated by the substitution of wiser and more prudent legislation, which shall mainly rely on a judicious system of public economies and official retrenchments, and, above all, on the promotion of prosperity in all the industries of the people.

I do not understand the repeal of the resumption clause of the act of 1875 to be a backward step in our return to specie payments, but the recovery of a false step; and, although the repeal may for a time be prevented, yet the determination of the Democratic party on this subject has now been distinctly declared. There should be no hinderances put in the way of a return to specie payments. "As such a hinderance," says the platform of the St. Louis convention, "we denounce the resumption clause of the act of 1875, and demand its repeal."

I thoroughly believe that by public economy, by official retrenchments and by wise finance, enabling us to accumulate the precious metals, resumption, at an early period, is possible without producing an "artificial scarcity of currency," or disturbing public or commercial credit; and that these reforms, together with the restoration of pure government, will restore general confidence, encourage the useful investment of capital, furnish employment to labor, and relieve the country from the "paralysis of hard times."

NEEDED REFORMS.

With the industries of the people there have been frequent interferences. Our platform truly says that many industries have been impoverished to subsidize a few. Our commerce has been degraded to an inferior position on the high seas; manufactures have been diminished; agriculture has been embarrassed; and the distress of the industrial classes demands that these things shall be reformed.

The burdens of the people must also be lightened by a great change in our system of public expenses. The profligate expenditure which increased taxation from five dollars per capita in 1860 to eighteen dollars in 1870, tells its own story of our need of fiscal reform.

Our treaties with foreign powers should also be revised and amended, in so far as they leave citizens of foreign birth in any particular less secure in any country on earth than they would be if they had been born upon our own soil; and the iniquitous coolie system, which, through the agency of wealthy companies, imports Chinese bondmen, and establishes a species of slavery, and interferes with the just rewards of labor on our Pacific coast, should be utterly abolished.

In the reform of our civil service, I most heartily indorse that section of the platform which declares that the civil service ought not to be "subject to change at every election," and that it ought not to be made "the brief reward of party zeal," but ought to be awarded for proved competency, and held for fidelity in the public employ. I hope never again to see the cruel and remorseless proscription for political opinions which has disgraced the administration of the last eight years. Bad as the civil service now is, as all know, it has some men of tried integrity and proved ability. Such men, and such men only, should be retained in office; but no man should be retained, on any consideration, who has prostituted his office to the purposes of partisan intimidation of compulsion, or who has furnished money to corrupt the elections. This is done, and has been done, in almost every county of the land. It is a blight upon the morals of the country, and ought to be reformed.

THE SCHOOLS AND EQUAL RIGHTS.

Of sectional contentions and in respect to our common schools I have only this to say: That, in my judgment, the man or party that would involve our schools in political or sectarian controversy is an enemy to the schools. The common schools are safer under the protecting care of all the people than under the control of any party or sect. They must be neither sectarian nor partisan, and there must be

neither division nor misappropriation of the funds for their support. Likewise, I regard the man who would arouse or foster sectional animosities and antagonisms among his countrymen as a dangerous enemy to his country. All the people must be made to feel and know that once more there is established a purpose and policy under which all citizens of every condition, race and color, will be secure in the enjoyment of whatever rights the Constitution and laws declare or recognize; and that in controversies that may arise the governinent is not a partisan, but within its constitutional authority the just and powerful guardian of the rights and safety of all. The strife between the sections and between races will cease as soon as the power for evil is taken away from a party that makes political gain out of scenes of violence and bloodshed, and the constitutional authority is placed in the hands of men whose political welfare requires that peace and good order shall be preserved everywhere.

GOVERNOR TILDEN'S PUBLIC SERVICES.

It will be seen, gentlemen, that I am in entire accord with the platform of the convention by which I have been nominated as a candidate for the office of Vice-President of the United States. Permit me, in conclusion, to express my satisfaction at being associated with a candidate for the Presidency who is first among his equals as a representative of the spirit and of the achievements of reform. In his official career as the Executive of the great State of New York, he has, in a comparatively short period, reformed the public service and reduced the public burdens, so as to have earned at once the gratitude of his State and the admiration of the country. The people know him to be thoroughly in earnest; he has shown himself to be possessed of powers and qualities which fit him in an eminent degree for the great work of reformation which this country now needs; and if he shall be chosen by the people to the high office of President of the United States, I believe that the day of his inauguration will be the beginning of a new era of peace, purity and prosperity, in all departments of our government. I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant,

THOMAS A. HENDRICKS.

To the Hon. John A. McClernand, Chairman, and others of the Committee of the National Democratic Convention.

The issue of the election of 1876 is now a matter of history. By a base and shameless fraud the chosen candidates of the people, Messrs. Tilden and Hendricks, were