Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/58

48, and patriotism of the people of the United States, and that they had firmness and wisdom to preserve the Union their valor had sustained; the second recognized honest difference of opinion as to the best plan of reconstruction, but deprecated the obstinacy or pride of opinion that gave strength to the enemies of the Union through discord and division among its friends; the third resolution expressed a desire for full recognition of all the civil and political privileges of the states lately in revolt as soon as compatible with national safety and the protection of the loyal people in these states; the fourth resolution reads as follows: "The name of the man or of the party that would propose to the nation to repudiate its just pecuniary obligations should be consigned to everlasting infamy;' the fifth expresses devotion to the soldiers and the cause for which they fought, and the sixth expresses a pledge to support the rights of the states in their domestic affairs, and at the same time a pledge to preserve the general government in its whole constitutional vigor; the seventh declared that the doctrine of nullification and secession held by the so-called democratic party is antagonistic to the perpetuity of the Union and destructive of the peace, order, and prosperity of the American people; the eighth pledged the party to maintain the national Union, and the ninth opposed taxation of the sale of mineral lands.

The democratic state convention which met April 5, 1866, adopted a platform consisting of eleven resolutions, the first of which expressed devotion to equal and exact justice to all men; support of the states in their rights and of the federal government in all its vigor; a jealous care of the elective franchise; supremacy of the civil over the military power; expressed opposition to centralized power; favored economy, education, morality, religious freedom, free speech, free press, and the writ of habeas