The Carson Daily Appeal

JUSTICE AND CLEMENCY.

The hearty manliness of the National Union Republican Platform is a fitting addendum to the Declaration of Independence under which grew up the government which Unionism spent its blood and treasure to sustain and perpetuate. The party which has for its mission the rebuilding of those parts of the Republic which were shattered and torn by the tempest of civil war, could not possibly be better placed before the country than as standing with firmness upon the first plank in the platform, by the terms of which the wise and liberal policy of Congressional reconstruction is upheld and its objects reiterated. So far as the promulgation of the party's creed upon the great issue which agitates the Nation is concerned, it gets comprehensive and ample expression in that first clause; and if nothing else had been expressed by the Convention regarding the political questions of the day, nothing more would have been requisite to state our case to the world save that admirable supplement offered to the Platform itself by General Carl Schurz, welcoming back into the brotherhood of States, and into a full share of the blessings of our government those "men who have served the rebellion and who are now frankly and honestly co-operating with the United States in restoring the peace of the country and in the reconstruction of the Southern States on a basis of impartial suffrage and equal rights."

All that is intermediate in the arrangement of the Platform is secondary to, and merely an elaboration of, the governing idea of obedience to the behests of Loyalty which is the prevailing sentiment. "For the best good of the country" is the sentiment thus enunciated: and the honest payment of the National Debt; the reduction of taxation; a regard for economy in the administration of public affairs; a faithful adhesion to the validity and consequence of our naturalization laws: and a declaration in acknowledgment of the obligations incurred by the country toward the soldiers and sailors who "preserved us a nation," all these, admirable, consistent and proper as they are, are but reference, in detail, to the means whereby that noblest of ends is to be attained.

If this Republic was worth the saving and is so regarded by the majority of its citizens, we need entertain no fears of the result of the election in November next because it is not a possibility that the Democratic party can devise a structure for its nominees to stand upon that shall oppose itself to the Platform just framed at Chicago without thereby denying the righteousness and justice of the war and, by consequence, assuming what Pendleton deduces from that position, namely, the repudiation of all obligations incurred thereby—obligations to guarantee the rights of loyalty in the South, obligations to stand between our soldiers and their families and want, as well as the prime obligation to preserve the National honor by sustaining the National credit. Not doubting that loyalty and honest patriotism are largely in the ascendant in the Republic, we cannot doubt that this people will show themselves willing and eager to stand shoulder to shoulder with Grant and Colfax upon the broad strong platform whose first and last planks are justice and generous clemency.