i s' 
 
 / 
 
 Published by the Union Republican Sor^gressional Committee, Washington, B. C. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PRINTERS’ GRANT AND COLFAX CLUB 
 
 OF THE 
 
 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
 
 
 TO OUR FELLOW-CRAFTSMEN THROUGHOUT THE UNION: 
 
 We greet you, gentlemen, and congratulate you upon the auspicious opening of the Presidential 
 campaign. The political sky is bright, and Victory smiles upon us in the near future. Let us 
 unite, organize, and labor till it rests on our standards ! 
 
 Animated by the conviction that the election to the Presidency and Vice Presidency of 
 Ulysses S. Grant and Schuyler Colfax, those tried patriots to whom has been committed by the 
 people the standard of popular liberty and equal rights, will bring to the country honor, peace, 
 and prosperity, we have united ourselves into a Printers’ Club, the better to aid in the accom¬ 
 plishment of this so desirable result. In this work we invite your sympathy and co-operation. 
 We believe no more patriotic cause could enlist the services of good citizens. 
 
 We consider it eminently appropriate that Printers, who proudly count of their number that, 
 singularly pure and upright statesman who occupies the second place upon our ticket, should uni;.-, 
 together, through love of country and pride of craft, in support of this ticket. 
 
 It is altogether fitting that they who have been laboring for the enlightenment of mankind 
 since far back in the dim past, when the glorious genius of Faust flashed in splendor on .1 
 benighted world, should still be found on the side of universal intelligence, without which libe: :v 
 cannot be perpetuated nor made to yield the full measure of its rich blessings. 
 
 We boldly assert that the candidates of our choice are the only true representatives 
 impartial liberty and universal intelligence to-day before the American people for their suffrages 
 for the first offices in the public gift. v 
 
 The party which is marshaled by these great leaders is the party of progressive freedom and 
 perpetual Union, of free schools and universal education, of national advancement and goven - 
 mental reform. 
 
 When we array ourselves under its banner, borne by these noble chieftains, we enlisr to 
 fight the battles of an aggressive civilization, and cast behind us the stagnant conservatism or a 
 dead past, leaving to the Bourbons in American politics who “ forget nothing and learn noth!. ” 
 the fool’s work of digging among its ashes in the vain hope of finding precepts of government 
 for a new age. 
 
 The party which has chosen these leaders to guide it to victory is the parent of those wise 
 and beneficent measures of legislation which have within the last decade carried our country 
 forwarded with such mighty strides in the race of the nations. 
 
 It swept away slavery, striking the chains from the shackled limbs of three millions of work¬ 
 ing men and women. By that supreme act it ennobled humanity, elevated labor, and dealt a 
 p«werful blow in favor of us as workingmen 5 for these emancipated slaves, degraded though they 
 be, were and are still members of the great family of working people. We are members of that 
 universal brotherhood, and their interest and ours are inseparable; the oppression and degradation 
 of them was indirectly the attempted enslavement and degradation of us; it was a blow at the 
 system of labor, and therefore an insult to all laborers. Ignorance and slavery go hand in hand ; 
 let the first perish as did the last, an enemy to civilization, and let both become relics of barbar¬ 
 ism. The Republican party, under Grant and Colfax, with the blessing of God, is marching 
 on to the complete accomplishment of this humane work. Slavery has already gone down before 
 its omnipotent tread; let us uphold its hands and swell its liberating columns, and ignorance and 
 its attendant evils will go the way of the twin relic. 
 
 As Workingmen, all our interests are on the side of the elevation of the dignity of labor 5 as 
 Printers, we are for the largest measure of popular intelligence, for without that our “ occupation’s 
 gone;” as Patriots, we must be for liberty, now and henceforth. Then let us support the can¬ 
 didates and the party upon whose banners are inscribed Liberty and Union, Equality and 
 Enlightenment ! 
 
 The Republican party, following up its just measure of emancipation, has given the ballot 
 to the liberated slaves, thus increasing the political strength of the working classes greatly. We 
 
2 
 
 ) 
 
 support the party which )6 just and generous enough to increase our political power in the land, 
 end oppose the party which seeks to restrict suffrage, oppress labor, and perpetuate the rule 
 of caste. 
 
 The Republican party, as we have declared, is the recorded friend of education. It has 
 taken the first steps towards establishing a national system of education, which is a national 
 blessing. Education is the great need of working men and women. It will elevate and redeem 
 them from the thraldom of capital. Let us support that party which will aid us to educate 
 aur children. 
 
 This party is also the parent of the Homestead Law, that beneficent measure which secures 
 lands to the landless and homes to the homeless—a measure enacted exclusively for the benefit 
 of the working classes by a Republican Congress. Let us show our gratitude and good sense by 
 supporting the party which gives us lands and homes. 
 
 Thi3 bold young party is the pronounced champion of national honest}', and opposes every 
 scheme of repudiation as a national crime. Shall we as workingmen encourage repudiation in 
 any form ? Repudiation would unsettle all business, and cause universal distress, commercial 
 anarchy, “ hard times,” that remorseless enemy of the working classes. Who that labors for 
 his bread does not know from sad experience that during “hard times” it is the toiling millions 
 who always suffer most? Let us as workingmen, with a wise regard for our own interests, 
 support the party which is for national honesty, the true basis of national prosperity, and oppose 
 the party that shamefully proclaims itself for repudiation, the equivalent of national dishonesty, 
 the syno/iym fer national disgrace and> shame; that would inaugurate universal distress by 
 undermining the credit of the government, flooding the country with a depreciated and fluctuat¬ 
 ing currency—with lying promises to pay, attractive to the ear and eye, but which turn to ashes 
 like the apples of the desert. 
 
 A Republican Congress has given to the workshops of the country the blessings of an 
 Eight- 1 " our Law, thus setting a wise example for private employers to follov/, and inaugurating 
 a revolution in the system of labor which is already spreading—a new revolution that shall not 
 stop in its benign progress until it reaches all the great labor-marts of the nation and ameliorates 
 Lie condition cf millions. By this just and liberal measure Congress gives proof once again that 
 it honestly desires the elevation of the working classes; that it is no champion of capital as 
 against labor. Let us as workingmen support the men and measures of that party which has 
 piven us eight hours as a day’s work ! 
 
 \ The rolls cf the Union army and navy, as well as the records left by the supporters of the 
 \va? for the Union in all the loyal States, show that Printers as a class were patriots. While 
 some §f our number were false, the mass w r ere true. The craft was largely represented, both 
 on Lind and sea, in that heroic struggle for national existence, and many of its members earned 
 honorable distinction and w'orthy scars. Scores of them performed the highest duty of men 
 ana citizens by giving their lives that the nation might not perish. They died on the rough 
 edge of battle, and sleep in honored graves on fields made famous by their valor and endurance. 
 By their sacrifice^ they made life glorious and death sublime. Shall not their memories therefore 
 be imperishable in our hearts ? Shall we, the living, now dishonor the dead by dishonoring the 
 cause for which they fought and died? What else but dishonor to heir memories would it be 
 for us now to fellowship with the enemies by whose murderous hands they died ? As we love 
 their memories, let us highly resolve that this shall never be ? 
 
 We in common with all good citizens want peace and good government, for without these 
 there can be no prosperity 7 . In prosperous times only can we have our necessary wants supplied. 
 And prosperous times exist only in times of peace. Grant says, “ Let us have peace /” The 
 Democratic candidates and their supporters respond with the revolutionary and treasonable cry 
 “Let us overturn the existing order cf things in the South ; let us upset the ‘ carpet-bag ’ governments 
 and drive out the ‘ carpet-baggers' /” as they madly characterized the loyal men who, under the 
 sacred guarantees of the national Constitution, have sought homes in the South. These threats 
 either mean war, or they are the mere reckless outbursts of impotent rage. Their authors 
 must either be responsible for the full meaning of their revolutionary language, or rest under the 
 stigma of being pronounced wind-baggers —a title which many of them have long since richly 
 earned. We want none of this feast of revolution and anarchy which the Democratic leaders 
 invite us to. We want prosperous times, that there may be plenty in the land. In order to 
 have these things we should first have peace. We must and will have peace; and woe, woe to 
 the men, whoever they be, who shall dare to stand in the pathway of that mighty host which 
 lias already conquered peace from the internal enemies of the Republic! 
 
 Turning from these noble candidates and the generous principles which they represent, let 
 us examine the measures and men which the opposite party offers for our support, and the record 
 of that party. 
 
 First of all, the Democratic party is responsible for the war upon the nation Its southern, 
 wing conquered in battle, and its northern wing defeated at the polls, the two again unite to 
 renew the struggle for the control of the Government, still refusing to accept the results of the 
 
3 
 
 arbitrament which their leaders invoked ; and to-day the party stands in the ignoble attitude of 
 resisting the return of peace, order, and national restoration. 
 
 It is the party of national dishonor, repudiation, and anarchy. It would disgrace the nation 
 by fostering its sworn enemies and proscribing its truest friends $ dishonor it by repudiating the 
 solemn promises made to its creditors in the hour of sorest need $ and plunge it again in to 
 anarchy by attempting the overthrow of the loyal governments erected by Congress in the 
 insurgent States. 
 
 Its composition includes the organized ignorance, prejudice, bigotry, and barbarism of the 
 country, and it feeds on the worst passions of bad men as its choicest food. In the South it is 
 the incarnation of rampant treason, assassinations and violence j in the North, the embodiment 
 of all the seditious plottings, midnight conspiracies, sneaking cowardice and cringing subserviency 
 which have stamped the name of Copperhead with eternal infamy. 
 
 It offers candidates for your suffrages, one of whom was the open, pronounced friend of the 
 maddened mob which ran riot in the streets of New York at the very hour when many of you, and 
 many more of your brothers and friends, were struggling in a life-and-death struggle with the 
 desperate cohorts of rebellion on the bloody hills of Gettysburg j while the other, though he once 
 fought in the Union army, now blares for blood, and proclaims for raising the standard of revolt 
 against the solemnly-enacted laws of his country. The first encouraged that infuriated and 
 powerful mob—a mob which constituted nothing less than the Northern wing of the Southern 
 army—to resist the draft and defy the national authority, thereby making an important diversion 
 in favor of the rebel commander by causing the withdrawal of more than twenty thousand 
 veteran troops from the enemy’s front to protect the peace in . New York against Horatio 
 Seymour’s “ friends.” Stimulated by his incendiary words, this maddened mob attacked and 
 burned orphan asylums, pursued and murdered citizens, destroyed private property, assaulted a 
 great printing-office in which scores of your craft were employed, blocked the wheels of trade in 
 a great metropolis, to the loss of millions to its inhabitants, and laid the first city of the continent 
 defenseless at its feet. The second, though he was then fighting in the field against the friends 
 of Horatio Seymour, now enters the unholy alliance, and insults his late comrades by asking 
 them to imitate his perfidy, let perish the glorious recollections of that terrible struggle, and 
 exalt those malignant enemies of the Republic who still rejoice in their treason. 
 
 Its candidates were nominated by a convention filled with the most conspicuous and vindictive 
 adherents of the “ lost cause,” while the fierce battle-yell of the rebel army rung out in defiance 
 at the mention of Seymour, Blair, and Repudiation. 
 
 Its platform was shaped by men, some of whom have declared, even since the convention, 
 that they stand ready once more to draw their swords against the country5 while its presses in 
 the South cry, “ Let us go into the campaign for Seymour and Blair with the old rebel yell !” 
 
 Its candidate for the Presidency is proved, by documentary evidence to-day on file in the 
 State Department, to have been in secret*conspiracy with the rebel emissaries to Canada in 1864, 
 with the undoubted object of carrying the State of New York out of the Union, at a time when 
 our struggle for national existence was at its height, and while the country was yet in the dark 
 night of its deep distress.. 
 
 But why continue the • comparison ? The contrast is endless. Seymour is the chosen 
 representative of all that is perfidious, base and malign in American politics. Grant is the 
 conceded personification of republican glory and national honor. Day is not more bright than 
 his glorious record. His name and fame are a part of the nation’s best history. At their 
 mention the patriot heart of the nation leaps high with generous inspiration. His election will 
 be an irreversible guarantee of that peace which the country needs. Seymour’s election would 
 be the resurrection of the dead Confederacy—a triumph of the “ lost cause.” Our choice is 
 made. Adopting the noble utterance of our beloved leader, we pronounce for Grant and 
 Union, Liberty and Law —and God defend the right! 
 
 HARRISON G. OTIS, 
 WILLIAM YOUNG, 
 
 L. H. PATTERSON, 
 
 A. J. PREALL, 
 
 Washington, D. C., 1 st August, 1868. J. S. GOURLAY, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 The foregoing address was adopted unanimously at a regular meeting of the Printers’ Grant 
 and Colfax Club of the District of Columbia, August 1, 1868, and by a resolution of the Club, 
 the Corresponding Secretary was instructed to circulate the same among the printers of the 
 country. 
 
 Attest: CHARLES E. LATHROP, 
 
 President Grant and Colfax Printers' Club. 
 
 THOMAS M. MOORE, 
 
 Recording Secretary. 
 
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL PLATFORM 
 
 ADOPTED AT CHICAGO, MAY 21, 1868. 
 
 The National Union Republican party of the United States, assembled in National Conven¬ 
 tion, in the city of Chicago, May 20, 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 constitu¬ 
 tions securing equal civil and political rights to all, and regard it as the duty of the Government 
 to sustain these 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 
 •f those States. 
 
 Third. —We denounce all forms of repudiation as a national crime; and national honor re¬ 
 quires 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 the 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 the 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 dutv of 
 Congress to reduce the 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; he 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 citizens; 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 pronounced guilty thereof by the votes of thirty-live 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 authorized by the law of nations, and at war with our national honor 
 and independence. Naturalized citizens are entitled to be protected in all their rights of citizen¬ 
 ship, as though they were native-born; and no citizen of the United States, native or natu¬ 
 ralized, must be liable to arrest and imprisonment by any foreign power for acts done or words 
 spoken in this country; and, if so arrested and imprisoned, it is the duty of the Government to 
 interfere in his behalf. 
 
 Tenth. —Of all who were faithful in the trials of the late war, there were none entitled to 
 more especial honor than the brave soldiers and seamen who endured the hardships of campaign 
 and cruise, and imperilled their lives in the service of the country. The bounties and pensions 
 provided by law for these brave defenders of the nation are obligations never to be forgotten. 
 The widows and orphans of the gallant dead are the wards of the people—a sacred legacy 
 bequeathed to the nation’s protecting care. 
 
 Eleventh. —Foreign emigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth, 
 development of resources, and increase of power to this nation—the asylum of the oppressed of 
 all nations—should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy. 
 
 Twelfth. —This Convention declares its sympathy with all the oppressed people which are 
 struggling for their rights. 
 
 ADDITIONAL RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED. 
 
 We highly commend the spirit of magnanimity and forgiveness with which the men who 
 have served the rebellion, but now frankly and honestly co-operate with us in restoring the peace of 
 the country, and reconstructing the Southern State governments upon the basis of impartial justice 
 and equal rights, are received back into the communion of the loyal people; and we favor the 
 removal of the disqualifications and restrictions imposed upon the late rebels, in the same measure 
 as the spirit of disloyalty will die out, and as may be consistent with the safety of the loyal people. 
 
 We recognize the great principles laid down in the immortal Declaration of Independence as 
 the true foundation of Democratic Government; and we hail with gladness every effort toward 
 making these principles a living reality on every inch of American soil. • 
 
 Gibson Brothbrs, Printkrs, Washington, D. C.