Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION. 1880. PROCEEDINGS. FIRST DAY-WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 1880. The REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION assembled in Exhibition Hall, Chicago, at twelve o'clock, noon, of this day, and was called to order by Hon. J. Donald Cameron, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, who announced that Rev. Dr. Kittredge, of Chicago, would open the proceedings with prayer. Rev. Dr. Kittredge then offered the following PRAYER. Let us unite in prayer: Our Father in Heaven, we thank Thee that at the opening of this Convention we can unite our hearts at the mercy seat and seek Thy blessing. We thank Thee that Thou hast promised to hear those who come to Thee with penitent, believing hearts. And so wilt Thou pardon us all our sins as we bow before Thee, and wilt Thou give us such a blessed mighty faith_in Thee that our prayer shall bring down a blessing from Thy love. We thank Thee this morning for the unity of our hearts in Thy Fatherhood. We thank Thee, gathered as we are from so many different homes, so many States, with so many different experiences and different views, that, as we look up into Thy face, we lose sight of all these differences as we call Thee "Our Father which art in heaven." We thank Thee this morning for all Thy blessings to our dear land; that, as Thou didst lead Thine Israel of old, and didst go before them in the cloud by day and in the pillar of fire by night, so Thou hast led our Nation during these many years, and though Thou hast led us as Thou didst Thine Israel through the Red Sea of blood, and through the wilderness of sorrow, we thank Thee that Thou hast never left us. We thank Thee that Thy discipline has purified us. We thank Thee this morning that we are a united Nation-one Nation in love one to the other. We thank Thee, Heavenly Father, for the names and the memories that are so sacred to us to-day; for that name of Washington, for that name of Lincoln, and for all the memories of great and good men through whom Thou hast blessed our country. And now we come to Thee this morning because Thou art an unchangeable God, because Thou art our God, as Thou wastour fathers' God. We come to pray that Thou wouldst bless our land to-day, and that Thy blessing may rest upon it in the future. Bless North and South, East and West, every State, every city and town, and every home. We thank Thee for all that Thou hast accomplished for the strength and the beauty of our country through that party whose representatives meet here to-day. We thank Thee for the chains of bondage that are forever broken. We thank Thee for re-united States. We thank Thee for the principles of justice, and equality, and righteousness which underlie the foundations of our Government. And now, Heavenly Father, bless this Convention. Guide all its deliberations by Thy Holy Spirit. May we look to Thee, who hast promised to give us wisdom if we only ask in faith. Wilt Thou help us in these days by Thy grace, to lose sight of all individual desires and opinions, and to seek only Thy glory, and the unity and the power of our dear land. We ask that thou wouldst bless the dear ones at home-homes from which so many of us have come to this city. Watch over them in our absence. Be as a wall of fire about our homes, and may we be re-united again to the dear ones from whom we are absent. Hear this our prayer. Bless us; bless this whole land. God of our fathers, may Thy blessing ever go before us, and at last wilt Thou gather us all into the Father's house, where they never go out, and where love, and truth, and friendship are perfect. We ask it all in the name of our blessed Redeemer, Amen. READING THE CALL. Mr. CAMERON. The Secretary of the National Committee will now read the call for the Convention. Col. THOS. B. KEOGH, Secretary of the Republican National Committee, then read the Call, as follows: WASHINGTON, JANUARY, 1880. A National Convention of the Republican party will meet at Chicago, Wednesday, the 2d day of June next, for the nomination of candidates to be supported for President and Vice-President at the next election. Republicans and all who will co-operate with them in supporting the nominees of the party, are invited to choose two delegates from each Congressional district, four at large from each State, two from each Territory and two from the District of Columbia, to represent them in the Convention. THOS. B. KEOGH, Secretary. J. D. CAMERON, Chairman. ADDRESS OF THE CHAIRMAN OF THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE. Mr. CAMERON then delivered the following opening address: Gentlemen of the Convention: I ask your attention for a single moment. During the canvass just ended there has been manifested in many sections of the country considerable bitterness, which, I trust, will entirely disappear before we enter upon the grave duties devolved upon us. Let there be but one motive governing our action, and let that be a determination to place in nomination the strongest possible candidates - men strong in themselves, men strong in the confidence and affections of the people, and men who will command the respect of the civilized world. Our country, of which we are justly proud, has grown so rapidly in population, wealth and influence during the existence of the Republican party, that we have attained a position as one of the leading powers of the world; and we can no longer be satisfied with our isolation. Recognizing the changed condition, we must place in position men whose familiarity with other nations will enable them to direct our affairs so that we will take the lead in commerce, as we have in agriculture and in manufactures. Do not for a moment doubt the strength of our institutions. They have been tried in blood and have come through the contest better, stronger, and purer than the most ardent patriot had dared to hope. No combination of circumstances, no coterie of individuals, no personal ambition, can ever prevail against the intelligence and inborn love of liberty which are implanted in the hearts of Americans. When the nominations are made and the Convention has completed its work, let there be but one sentiment animating all earnest, sincere, and unselfish Republicans, and let that be that each shall vie with the other in carrying our grand old party through the coming contest to victory. I have been instructed by the Republican National Committee to place in nomination as Temporary Chairman, Hon. GEORGE F. Hoar, of Massachusetts. The nomination being unanimously agreed to, the Chair appointed Ex-Gov. E. J. DAVIS, of Texas, Hon. WILLIAM P. FRYE, of Maine, and Hon. GREEN B. RAUM, of Illinois, a committee to conduct the Chairman to his seat. The Committee then conducted Mr. HOAR to the chair. Mr. CAMERON. Gentlemen of the Convention : I have the great pleasure of introducing to you the Honorable George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts. ADDRESS OF THE TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN. On taking the chair, Mr. HOAR said: Gentlemen of the Convention: Accept my thanks for this distinguished mark of your confidence. The framers of the Constitution expected that the President would be chosen by Electors, who were to assemble in their respective States, and, on consultation with each other, cast their ballots for a Chief Magistrate. In case of failure by the Electors, the House of Representatives, voting by States, were to make choice from the four who had the highest number of votes in the Electoral College.. So far from direct popular action did the Constitution remove the choice of an Executive. But the people, by the customs they have established, have baffled the expectation of the framers of the Constitution. The Elector to-day is but a scribe. The Conventions of the great political parties designate each a man for whom the people vote directly through their agents, the Presidential Electors, and to a choice between whom they are practically restricted. The function of this Convention, therefore, is to name one of two men from whom the people of the United States are to select their President. If it perform its duties wisely, fearlessly, and freely, it is to name the man whom the people will make their President. Your term of office is but brief; but scarcely any duty is intrusted to the most honored citizens of the Republic which, in dignity, in authority, in far-reaching public importance, equals this. It is twenty years since the Republican Convention met in this city, and after a stormy but friendly contest, put in nomination Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin. Lincoln has gone to his rest. His companion upon the ticket, in fresh and vigorous age, is present with us to-day, to give us counsel' from the stores of an experience gathered from a life of honorable public service. Lincoln has gone to his rest. Douglas and Breckinridge, his two competitors for the great office of the Presidency, sleep by his side. But, the parties which confronted each other then, confront each other now, unchanged in purpose, in temper, and in character. The Democratic party was ruled then, as now, by the South. The single purpose of its being was to give political supremacy to the oligarchs of the South, and office, without influence, to their subservient Northern allies. In the pursuit of that end, every great public interest was sacrificed or disregarded. Expending little for public improvements, either on the coast or on inland river or lake, in 1860 the credit of the Nation was poor, its treasury empty, its six per cent. bonds below par. Our unprotected manufactures contended at fearful odds with the pauper labor of Europe, on whose workshops we depended for a large portion of the necessaries and comforts of life. Our little navy was scattered over the four quarters of the globe. Four millions of our countrymen were in hopeless bondage. To them every new State, as it took its place in the great family, but added a new dungeon to their gloomy prison-house. At last, as the Democratic party let go its hold on power, the National flag itself seemed about to be folded and laid aside, to be regarded thenceforth as a miserable symbol of the futility and folly of the last great experiment of self-government. The Democratic party confronts us to-day, as I said, unchanged in purpose, in temper, and in character. United in nothing else, proposing no other measure of policy, it wages its warfare upon the sefeguards which the Nation has thrown around the purity of its elections. It can see nothing else of evil except that a freeman should cast a free vote under the protection of the National authority. In Louisiana and Mississippi it is the accomplice of the White League and the Ku-Klux. In South Carolina it takes the honest ballot from the box, and stuffs tissue ballots in its place. In New York it issues fraudulent naturalization papers, three score thousand in number. In Maine its ambitious larceny tries to pilfer a whole State Government at once. In Delaware it stands complacently by the whipping-post. As in war it found in the Constitution nothing which could protect the National life, so in peace it finds nothing there which can protect the National honor. Can you find in the history of the Democratic party for sixteen years anything that it has either done or tried to do, except to break down the legal safeguards which make free elections possible? |