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prove to be many millions short of what they will spend, but we will give them the benefit of their own statements. After the close of the war, and up to the Ist of July, 1865, the \\ ar De partment paid $165,000,000; which is $75,000,000 more than was spent by the same department in the four years of Mr. Polk’s administration, and which includ ed the cost of the Mexican war. It took nearly twice as much to stop a war under Republican policy as it did to carry on a war under the Democratic management. But I will not take this $165,000,000 into account. Let us close the war. Since July 1, 1865, about three months after the surrender of Lee, up to July 1, 1868, the cost of government will be by official reports and estimates $820,390,208. Up to July 1, 1869, by the estimate of the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, it will be $197,973,366, making the cost of government for four years, $1,018,363,574. This does not include one cent paid or to be paid for interest or principal of the debt. The cost of govern ment during the four years before the war (leaving out interest on debt) was $256,- 246,414. This shows that the Repub cans have spent in a time of peace four dollars where the Democrats spent one. But the cost of government grows greater, and we will allow them to spend two dol lars where the Democrats spent one. This will make $512,452,828. But they spent $505,910,646 beyond this. What did they do with the money? During the four years of Mr. Polk’s term, which in cluded the Mexican war, the cost of the War Department was only $90,540,788 21. We find that the cost of the War Depart ment, taking their own statements and estimates, will be in those four years of peace, $541,613,619. And this follows an expenditure of more than $3,000,000,000 during the war. The cost of the Navy Department in the four years ending July i, 1860, will be, by Republican statements and estimates, $117,471,802; and this follows an expenditure of $314,186,742 during the war. In the four years before the war the navy cost only $62,910,534. We then stood in the front rank of com mercial powers. Our ships were on every sea and were to bo found in every port. — American shipping is now by our tariff policy swept from the ocean, but the cost of the navy is nearly doubled. The year ending July 1, 1868, is the third year of peace. But the War Department cost $128,858,494, which is more than its cost during the four years of Mr. Polk’s term, which covered the expenses of the Mex ican war. Not only does one year of peace cost more than four years of war then did, but the third year of peace cost more than the second, for in the year end ing July 1, 1867, the War Department spent only $95,224,415. In these state ments we have given the Republicans the full benefit of their promises for the fiscal year ending July 1, 1869, but we should iike to ask a few questions. If $38,(381,013 is enough for the War Department in that year, why and how did you spend $123,- 858,490 this year?. If $17,500,000 is enough for the navy in 1869, why did you spend upon it $43,324,111 in 1866, and $31,024,011 in 1867? You have not cut down the numbers of the army. Did you waste money this year, or are your state ments for next year untrue? We ask Republicans to read the estimates for the future, for they show the profligacy of the past. If $500,000,000 of the money paid for military, naval, and other expenses had been used to pay the debt, to-day the credit of the United States would have been as good as that of Great Britain. — This rapid payment, and the proof it would have given of good faith, would have carried the national credit to the highest point. The bonds would be worth much more in the hands of holders, and yet the tax-payer would seem better off, for the cost of Government would be cut down as its credit rose. Wo could put out new bonds, bearing less in terest, which would not have the odious exemption from taxation. Our debt would have been less, our interest lower, and our taxes reduced. The hours of labor could be shortened. What now lengthens the time of toil ? If we were free from any iorm of taxation, direct or indirect, six hours of work would earn as much as ten do now. One hour more of work ought to meet a laborer’s share of the cost of gov ernment, another hour should pay his share of the national debt. He now works two hours more each day than he ought to pay for the military and negro policy of Congress and its corrupt schemes. It ha* just passed a law that eight hours make a oafs yu ;<■ «;i oa , load ot taxation which forces tne laooref to work ten hours or starve. But the wise and honest use of this $500,000,000 would not have stopped here. When it carried our bonds to the level of specie value, it would have carried up our currency to the value of specie. The plan of making our currency as good as gold by contracting its volume carries with it great distress and suffering. But if we lift up its value, by getting rid of the taint upon the na tional credit, it harms no one, it blesses all. Now our legal-tender and bank cur rency must be debased while our national bonds stand discredited. They must rise and fall together. They are all based upon the national credit. Bank notes can not be worth more than the bonds which secure them- If, then, the $500,000,000 had been duly and honestly used to pay our debt, to-day the tax-payers would hpve been relieved, the mechanic, laborer, and pensioner would have been paid in coin, or money good as coin, and would not be cheated out of one-quarter of their due sby false dollars. The holders of bonds in savings banks or life insurance wou'd be better off, as their securities would be safer and worth more. There would be no question how they should be paid, for this question grows out of the follies of those in power and will disappear when they disappear from the places they now hold. The bondholder would no longer stand in an odious light: He would not be charged with the taxation which has been used to hurt, not to help, his claim. If a wise, an honest use of the public money would have done this good in the past, it would do it in the future. But the Re publican party, at Chicago, pledged itself, by its nominations and resolutions, to keep up its negro policy. It is impossible to give untutored Africans at the South un controlled power over the Government, the property, and laws of the people often States, by excluding white votes, without military despotism. Lou canuot give to three millions of negroes more Senators than are allowed to fifteen millions of white men living in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, lowa, Kentucky, Missouri, and Michigan, with out keeping up great staudiug armies. Without a general amnes y, and the resto ration of the suffrage to all the whites in the South, a great standing army must be a permanent institution. In order to curse the South with military despotism, negro rule and disorganized labor and industry, they cursed the farmers of the North with taxation, the mechanics with more hours of toil, the laborers and pensioners with debased paper, the merchant with a shift ing standard, and the public creditor with a dishonored and tainted national faith. Are these glasses to turn and to see how each can push the burthens upon each other, or are they to make common cause and do away with the curse of a bad gov ernment ? If the Republican policy pre vails, this struggle must begin. Either the laborer or the capitalist must go down. Both cannot live under it, and men must choose between. If, on the other hand, the policy of selfish ambition and of sec tional hate is put down, our country will start upon anew course of prosperity, and all classes will reap in common the fruits of good government. The next election will turn upon this question, can the Con gressional party succeed in their efforts to excite and array the industrial and moneyed interest against each other, or will these unite and turn out the authors of the mis chief under which they are all suffering.— The only hope of our opponents is discord where there should be harmony and con cert of action. In our State, at the last election, we appealed to all classes to help us save New York from misgovernment and all came up to the rescue, and we made a change of seventy thousand. Let us again appeal to all classes of interests throughout the Union; let us go before the people with these facts, and we will make a change which will sweep the wrong doers from their places. We say to the bondholders and to the laborer who has put his money into savings banks: “We do not wish to harm you, we do not seek to give you bad money, but to get a good currency for all. It will not help us to break down the credit of your bonds; it hurts us;, it keeps up our taxes by making us pay high interest; but we ask you to help save us as tax-payers, from the cost of the negro and military policy at the South. It is hard for us to pay you if you let men in power take the money we give in taxes to reduce your claims and use it to uphold military despotism. We see clearly that a state of affairs which will compel you to take a debased currency will force every laborer, farmer, mechanic, and creditor to take a debased currency as well. If your claims were all wiped out to-morrow by an issue of greenbacks, it would not relieve the fear of patriots; labor would still be cheated by false dollars, our standard of value would still be shifting. Taxation would be kept up by the Reconstruction policy, for it is despotism more than debt that makes taxation so heavy. Nothing would be settled. The judiciary would still be trampled under foot, the Executive would still be manacled so that it could not punish crime nor protect innocence. But strike down the Congressional policy, and all will be set right. Since the war closed in 1865, the Government has spent for its expenses, in addition to payments on prin cipal or interest of the public debt, the sum of more than $1,000,000,000. Os this sum there has been spent nearly $800,000,000 on the army and navy and for military purposes. This is nearly OLe-third ot the national debt. This was spent in the time of peace. The cost of our navy before the war was about $13,000,000 each year. Since the war, when our shipping has 000, although we have now no carrying trade to protect. While money is thus wasted without scruple upon the army and navy, if any aid is sought to lessen the cost of iransportat’on for the farmers of the West or to cheapen food for the laborers of the East, we are at once treated with Congressional speeches upon the virtues of economy. If from this amount theie had been saved and paid upon the debt the sum of $500,000,000, how changed would our condition have been. With this pay ment, which would have cut down the debt to about $2,000,000,000, our credit would at least have been as good as that of Great Britain. It is because we did not thus apply this money to this purpose, but spent it upon the negro policy, the military despotisms and other abuses of government, that our credit is so low. The world saw we were violating our faith with the public creditors and the tax-payers alike, when the money was used for the partisan purposes of keeping the South out of the Union until sham governments could be manufactured by military violence and Congressional action. The world not only saw the monstrous diversion of the money, wrung from the people by tax ation, but it also saw thatitmade, through a long series of years, still greater annual expenses unavoidable. W hen the entire control of the Southern States is given over, unchecked by the intelligence of the white race, to untutored negroes, whom the people of the North have said were unfit to be voters, when the unfortunate Africans, drunk with unusual power, and goaded on by bad and designing men, shall make life and property unsafe, and shall shock and disgust the world with out rages, we shall be forced to raise and pay still greater armies. Up to this time the South has had at least an intelligent tyranny in military officers. Every man who is not blinded by hate or bigotry looks forward w ith horror to the condition of the South under negro domination. The bad faith to the ptiblic creditor and tax payer in thus unsettling our Union, of keeping the South in a condition where it cannot help the national prosperity, but is made a heavy load upon the country, is the real cause of our debased credit. The tax-payer was told the burthens put upon him were to pay the debt; but the money was not used in good faith to him, for the debt still stands ; nor in good faith to the creditor, for he was not paid what he should have been; but it was used in a way which harmed both, in a way that tainted the nation’s credit, kept up taxa tion by keeping up the rate of interest, while it sank the value of the bonds, and with them carried down the paper currency, and thus wronged the laborer and pension er. But for the policy of bad faith, of partisan purposes, mad folly, we could to day borrow money as cheaply as Great Britain; but we have cursed the tax payers, the laborer, the pensioner, the public creditor, for the sake of cursing the people of the South with military despotism, and negro domination. Every one must see, if we paid off one fifth of our debt, had kept dewn the cost of Government, had given peace to our Union, had built up industry and good order in the South, not one of the evils which now afflict us could have existed. Our whole condition would have been changed. We demand that our currency shall be made as good as gold, not by contracting the amount, but by contracting the expenses of Govern ment. We are against measures which will pull down business credit, and call for those which shall lift up the national credit. When we stop to waste which forces us to pay a usury of ten percent., and take a course which will enable us to borrow money upon the rates paid by other nations, we shall add to the dignity and power of our Union. When we give value to our bonds by using the money drawn by taxation to the payment of our debt, and not to the military and negro scheme, we shall relieve the tax-payer, the bill-holder, and give strength and value to the claims of the public creditor. We have seen the mis chief wrought out by the policy of the past three years. It will be as hurtful in the future as it has been in the past. Yet the Republican party has approved it and is pledged to it. We have shown how the policy of using our money to pay our debts would have helped us in the past. It will do the same for us in the future. To that policy we are pledged. There is not one man of our party in this broad land who doubts upon this point. It was never charged that a single Democrat in these United States ever favored the military and negro policy upon which the credit of the country has been wrecked. Our reme dy is to use the public money to pay the public debt. It is & simple, brief, but; a certain remedy for our national malady. Our ailment is debt, aggravated by despot ism. In another way the Republicans do a constant wrong to the bondholders. In answer to complaints of heavy taxation, they say it cannot be helped with our heavy debt, and thus throw the whole odium on the debt. Why do they not tell the truth, and say one-third of our taxa tion is made by our debt? Then they will be asked, what makes the two-thirds? This question they do not want to have asked, and they do not want to an swer. When they do answer, the eyes of all classes will be opened. They will be forced to say that last year they spent, by reports of Committee of Ways and Means, $379,178,066 83, and this in the third year of peace. Well, say our well mean ing Republican friends, we suppose the in terest of the debt took most of it. Oh, no, that took $149,418,383 87, not quite as much as was spent by the War and Navy Departments, which was $149,472,165 35, for other til frigs; —tt iry-xaiftf' 000 more than the Democrats spent for army and navy and all expenses of Govern ment put together! But why do you 5pendi525,613,673 53 on the navy when it formerly cost $13,000,000 annually ? Has American shippinggrown so much that we have to keep up vast navies to protect it ? Oh, no, our tariffs have swept away American ships from the ocean ; we have lost the carrying trade ; the British have got that. Then why don’t you give the builders of merchant ships the money spent on the navy, by way of drawback on duties ? Would that start work at our shipyards ? Oh, yes, half the cost would do it. Then, why is it not done ? We did not think of it, really, we have been so busy with the impeachment and negro questions, that we forgot our sailors and mechanics. But we see that the War De partment this year spent $128,858,466, when the year before it spent only about $95,000,000. The longer we have peace the more the army costs. How is this ? Well, it costs a great deal to keep soldiers and breemen s Bureau Agents, and to feed and clothe negroes at the South But why do you do it ? Let the negroes support themselves as we do. You make the laborers of the South work to feed and clothe these idle Africans. True, but by so doing we get their votes, and they will send our travelling agents to Congress ; we shall get twenty Senators in this way, while a majority of the people of the United States living in nine States, have only eighteen. The people may vote as they please, but they cannot get the Senate, nor repeal any of the laws we got through for our advantage ; we have managed it so that one-quarter of the people have more power in the South than the three quarters. We now own the negroes of the South. Did we not buy them by your blood and money ? vVe now see where the money goes ; we now see why ►he credit of our country is so tainted ; we now see why the value of our paper money is sink ing. It was only at twenty-one per cent, discount in 1866, it is now at a discount of about twenty-nine per cent.; we now see why our laborers and pensioners are cheat ed by false dollars. If the mechanic cares to know why he works so many hours, let him study the reports of the Secretary of the Treasury. It is clear why bu.-iness is hindered and business men perplexed. We now know why the public creditor is har assed by our dishonored credit, and the tax-payer is hunted down by the tax gatherer. The negro military policy of the Republican party is at the bottom of all these troubles. We now get at the real issues between parties. The Republicans, by their nominations and resolutions, are pledged to keep up the negro and military policy, with all its cost and taxations. These will be greater hereafter. The gov ernment of the South is to go into the hands of the negroes. We have said they are unfit to be voters at the North. The Republicans say they shall be governors at the South. We are clearly opposed to this policy. We have seen how much it costs the tax-payer, the bondholder and the la borer in the past three years. It will be as hurtful in the future. We have also seen how our policy of using the money to pay our debts would have helped the tax-payer, the bondholder and the laborer in the past. It will do as much in the future. The whole question is brought down to this clear point: shall we use our money to pay our debts, relieve the tax payer, make our money good in the hand of the laborer or pensioner, and help the bondholder ? or shall we use it to keep up military despotism, feed idle negroes, break down the judiciary, shackle the ex ecutive, and destroy all constitutional rights. (Cries of “No ! no !”) I have said nothing in behalf of, or against iho views ot an - one who is spoken of as a candidate fm e Presidency on the Democratic side, f nave only said what each one agrees to and is in favor of. No man has been nam ed who is not in favor of reducing ex penses and then making our paper as good as gold. No man has been named who is not in favor ot cutting down military expenses. No man has been named who is not in favor of using the money drawn from the tax-payers to pay the public debt. No man has been named who is not in favor of a general amnesty to the people of the South. No man has been named who is not an upholder of constitutional rights. No mau has been named by the Democratic party, whose election would not help the tax-payer, the pensioner, the laborer and the bondholder. On the other hand, the candidates of the Republican party are pledged to their past policy, which has sunk the value of our currency more than eight per cent, in the past two years. The discount upon our paper money was twenty percent, in xkpril, 1866; it is now about twenty-nine per cent. It will continue to go down under the same policy. As it sinks it will increase taxes, it will curseall labor and business, it will endanger still more the public credit, for the greater the premium on gold the harder it becomes to pay specie to the bond holder, and its claims become more odious. What claim have the Republicans upon our soldiers? They take away from him one-quarter of his pension, by paying him in false money, which is worth less than seventy-five cents on the dollar. A wise and honest administration would have made it worth its face in gold. What right have they to call upon the mechanic and labor er ? They have lengthened out the hours of their toil to feed swarms of office-holders at the North, and to support armies and hordes of negroes at the South. How can they look the tax-payers in the face, when they have wrung from them so many *«UliAns udqh the Ju-nrexp using the money thus collected to support standing armies and to trample upon the rights and liberties of the American people? Can they, with decency, appeal to the bondholder, after tainting the national credit and sinking it to the level, of the Turks, and endangering their securities, by throwing upon them the whole odium of taxation? Then let the East and West, the North and the South, the soldier, the sailor, in ships or in the field, the tax-payer and the bondholder, by one united effort, drive from power the common enemies of liberty, honesty, honor, rights and constitutional laws. (Loud applause.) Gen. V. P. Blair on the Situation. Washington, June 30,1868. Col. James O. Broadhead: Dear Colonel : In reply to your in quiries, I beg leave to say that I leave to you to determine, on consultation with my ! friends from Missouri, whether my name I shall be presented to the Democratic Con- vention, and to submit the following as what I consider the real and only issue in this contest. The reconstruction policy of the Radi cals will be complete before the next elec tion; the States, so long excluded, will “ a £ e tae o admitted; negro suffrage estab lished, and the carpet-baggers installed in their seats in both branches of Congress, lhere is no possibility of changing the political character of the Senate, even if the Democrats should elect their President and a majority of the popular branch of Congress. \\ e cannot, therefore, undo the Radical plan of reconstrnction by Congres sional action; the Senate will continue a bar to its repeal. How can it be over tho° W ? L Ca V nly overl thrown by the authority of the Exective, who is sworn to maintain the Constitution, and who will fail to do his duty if he allows the Constitution to perish under a series °* Congressional enactments which are in palpable violation of its fundamental prin ciples. If the President elected by the Democra cy enforces or permits others to enforce these Reconstruction Acts, the Radicals, by the accession of twenty spurious Sen ators and fifty Representatives, will con trol both branches of Congress, and his administration will be as powerless as the present one of xMr. Johnson. There is but one way to restore the Gov ernment and the Constitution, and that is for the President elect to declare these Acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the South, dis perse the carpet-bag State governments, allow the white people to reorganize their own governments and elect Senators and Representatives. The House of Represent atives will contain a majority of Demo crats from the North, and“ they will admit the Representatives elected by the white people of the South, and with the co operation of the President it will not be difficult to compel the Senate to submit once more to the obligations of the Con stitution. It will not be able to withstand the public judgment, if distinctly invoked and clearly expressed on this fundamental issue, and it is the sure way to avoid all future strife to put the issue plainly to the country. I repeat that this is the real and onlv question which we should allow to control us. Shall we submit to the usurpations by which the Government has been over thrown, or shall we exert ourselves for its lull and complete restoration ? It is idle to talk of bonds, greenbacks, gold, the public faith, and the public credit. What can a Democratic President do in regard to any of those, with a Congress in both branches controllep by the carpet-baggers and their allies ? He will be powerless to stop the supplies by which idle negroes are organized into political clubs—by which an army is maintained to protect these vaga bonds in their outrages upon the ballot. These, and things like these, eat up the revenues and resources of the Government and destroy its credit—make the difference between gold and greenbacks. We must re store the Constitution before we can restore the finances, and to do this we must have a President who will execute the will of the people by trampling into the dust the usurpations of Congress, known as the Reconstruction Acts. I wish to stand be fore this Convention upon this issue, but it is one which embraces everthing else that is of value m its large and compre hensive results. It is the one thing that includes all that is worth a contest, and without it there is nothing that gives dig nity, honor or value to the struggle. Your friend, Frank P. Blair. Platform of the Democratic Party. The following is the Declaration of Prin ciples of the National Democratic Party, unanimously adopted at the New York Convention: The Democratic Party in National Con vention assembled, reposing its trust in the intelligence, patriotism, discrimination and justice of the people; standing upon the Constitution as the foundation and limita tion of the powers of the Government, and the guaranteeing of the liberties of the citi zen, and recognizing the questions of slavery and secession as having been set tled for all time to come by the war, or the voluntary action of the Southern States in Constitutional Conventions assembled, and never to be renewed or re-agita*ed, do, with the return of peace, demand— First. The immediate restoration of all the States to their rights in the Union under the Constitution, and of civil govern fefD“ ericai v peoi :! c - - franchise in t all J ,a M Active Third Ti ° citizens. of the Unitea^7 lUent of the pub,ic debt ble; and thataalaf a t es as soon as practica people by taxation, s draWn r ? m tbe requisite for the necess[fsf 3 ? ?f ucdl as 13 ment economically administer , e Govern ly applied to such payment; he honest the obligations of the Government where expressly state upon their face, or thJiot under which they were issued does no. provide that they shall be paid in coin, they ought, in right and in justice, to be paid in the lawful money of the United States. In demanding these measures and re forms we arra’gn the Radical party for its disregard of right and the unparalleled op pression and tyranny which have marked its career. After a most solemn and unan imous pledge of both Houses of Con gress to prosecute the war exclusively for the mainteiuance of the Government and the preservation of the Union under the 5