American Party Platform (1856)

AMERICAN PARTY PLATFORM (1856)

• 2. The perpetuation of the Federal Union and Constitution, as the palladium of our civil and religious liberties, and the only sure bulwarks of American Independence.
• 3. Americans must rule America; and to this end native-born citizens should be selected for all State, Federal and municipal offices of government employment, in preference to all others. Nevertheless,
• 4. Persons born of American parents residing temporarily abroad, should be entitled to all the rights of native-born citizens.
• 5. No person should be selected for political station (whether of native or foreign birth), who recognizes any allegiance or obligation of any description to any foreign prince, potentate or power, or who refuses to recognize the Federal and State Constitutions (each within its sphere) as paramount to all other laws, as rules of political action.
• 6. The unqualified recognition and maintenance of the reserved rights of the several States, and the cultivation of harmony and fraternal good will between the citizens of the several States, and to this end, non-interference by Congress with questions appertaining solely to the individual States, and non-intervention by each State with the affairs of any other State.
• 7. The recognition of the right of native-born and naturalized citizens of the United States, permanently residing in any territory thereof, to frame their constitution and laws, and to regulate their domestic and social affairs in their own mode, subject only to the provisions of the Federal Constitution, with the privilege of admission into the Union whenever they have the requisite population for one Representative in Congress: Provided, always, that none but those who are citizens of the United States, under the Constitution and laws thereof, and who have a fixed residence in any such Territory, ought to participate in the formation of the Constitution, or in the enactment of laws for said Territory or State.
• 8. An enforcement of the principles that no State or Territory ought to admit others than citizens to the right of suffrage, or of holding political offices of the United States.
• 9. A change in the laws of naturalization, making a continued residence of twenty-one years, of all not heretofore provided for, an indispensable requisite for citizenship hereafter, and excluding all paupers, and persons convicted of crime, from landing upon our shores; but no interference with the vested rights of foreigners.
• 10. Opposition to any union between Church and State; no interference with religious faith or worship, and no test oaths for office.…
• 13. Opposition to the reckless and unwise policy of the present Administration in the general management of our national affairs, and more especially as shown in removing "Americans" (by designation) and Conservatives in principle, from office, and placing foreigners and Ultraists in their places; as shown in a truckling subservience to the stronger, and an insolent and cowardly bravado toward the weaker powers; as shown in reopening sectional agitation, by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; as shown in granting to unnaturalized foreigners the right of suffrage in Kansas and Nebraska; as shown in its vacillating course on the Kansas and Nebraska question; as shown in the corruptions which pervade some of the Departments of the Government; as shown in disgracing meritorious naval officers through prejudice or caprice: and as shown in the blundering mismanagement of our foreign relations.
• 14. Therefore, to remedy existing evils, and prevent the disastrous consequences otherwise resulting therefrom, we would build up the "American Party" upon the principles herein before stated.…

SOURCE: Greeley, Horace and John F. Cleveland. A Political Text-book for 1860. New York: Tribune Association, 1860.

The American Party (Know Nothings)

The 1840s and 1850s saw an enormous increase in the numbers of European immigrants, Irish and Germans especially, arriving on American shores and settling in heavily populated urban areas. Many of these immigrants subsequently became active in local politics, much to the vexation of old-stock, "real" Americans. The result was a renaissance in the formation of "nativistic" societies—small, shadowy, anti-foreign, anti-Catholic organizations, a number of which banded together in the early 1850s to form the American Party. Popularly known as "Know-Nothings" (after the response members gave when interrogated about their pro-protestant, pro-native associations), the American Party rode a wave of xenophobia and racism (not to mention political turmoil among the Whigs and Democrats, the major parties of the day) into the mid-1850s. Among the Know-Nothing's dubious political ideas was a call to extend the five-year naturalization period to twenty-one years, as well as a proscription against the holding of elected offices by Catholics and foreigners. Like much of the country, however, the Know-Nothings soon divided over the explosive slavery issue, and the power of the party quickly waned. Their nominee for president in 1856, former President Millard Fillmore, received just twenty-one percent of the popular vote and won only the state of Maryland. Still disdaining urban foreigners, most of who were Democrats, many of the nowerstwhile Know-Nothings allied with the newly formed Republican Party.

Laura M.Miller, Vanderbilt University

1852 Free Soil Party Platform

Having assembled in national convention as the Free Democracy of the United States, united by a common resolve to maintain right against wrong, and freedom against slavery; confiding in the intelligence, patriotism, and discriminating justice of the American people; putting our trust in God for the triumph of our cause, and invoking his guidance in our endeavors to advance it, we now submit to the candid judgment of all men, the following declaration of principles and measures:
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Second. That the true mission of American Democracy is to maintain the liberties of the people, the sovereignty of the states, and the perpetuity of the Union, by the impartial application to public affairs, without sectional discrimination, of the fundamental principles of human rights, strict justice, and an economical administration.
Third. That the federal government is one of the limited powers derived solely from the Constitution, and the grants of powers therein ought to be strictly construed by all the departments and agents of the government, and it is inexpedient and dangerous to exercise doubtful constitutional powers. .
Fourth. That the Constitution of the United States, ordained to form a more perfect Union, to establish justice, and secure the blessings of liberty, expressly denies to the general government all power to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; and therefore the Government, having no more power to make a slave than to make a king, and no more power to establish slavery than to establish a monarchy, should at once proceed to relieve itself from all responsibility for the existence of slavery, wherever it possesses constitutional Power to legislate for its extinction.
Fifth. That to the persevering and importunate demands of the slave power for more slave states, new slave territories, and the nationalization of slavery, our distinct and final ,answer is: No more slave states, no slave territory, no Nationalized slavery, and no national legislation for the extradition of slaves.
Sixth. That slavery is a sin against God and a crime against man, which no human enactment nor usage can make right; and that Christianity, humanity, and patriotism alike demand Its abolition.
Seventh.That the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is repugnant to the Constitution, to the principles of the common law, to the spirit of Christianity, and to the sentiments of the civilized World. We therefore deny its binding force on the American people, and demand its immediate and total repeal.
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Ninth. That the acts of Congress renown as the "compromise" measures of 1850,--by making the admission of a sovereign state contingent upon the adoption of other measures demanded by the special interests of slavery; by their omission to guarantee freedom in the free territories; by their attempt to impose unconstitutional limitations on the powers of Congress, and the people to admit new states; by their provisions for the assumption of five millions of the state debt of Texas. and for the payment of five millions more, and the cession of large territory to the same state under menace, as an inducement to their relinquishment of a groundless claim;, and by their invasion of the sovereignty of the states and the liberties of the people, through the enactment of an unjust, oppressive, and unconstitutional fugitive slave law,-are proved to be inconsistent with all the principles and maxims of Democracy, and wholly inadequate to the settlement of the questions of which they are claimed to be an adjustment.
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Eleventh. That all men have a natural right to a portion of the soil; and that as the use of the soil is indispensable to life, the right of all men to the soil is as sacred as their right to life itself.

Twelfth. That the public lands of the United States belong to the people, and should not be sold to individuals, nor granted to corporations, but should be held as a sacred trust for the benefit of the people, and should be granted in limited quantities, free of cost, to landless settlers.
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Fourteenth. That river and harbor improvements, necessary to the safety and convenience of commerce with foreign nations or among the several states, are objects of national concern, and it is the duty of Congress, in the exercise of its constitutional powers, to provide for the same
Fifteenth. That emigrants and exiles from the Old World should find a cordial welcome to homes of and fields of enterprise in the New; and every attempt to abridge their privilege of becoming citizens and owners of soil among us ought to be resisted with inflexible determination.
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Eighteenth. That as, by the Constitution, "the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several states," the practice of imprisoning colored seamen of other states while the vessels to which they belong lie in port, and refusing the exercise of the right to bring such cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, to test the legality of such proceedings, is a flagrant violation of the Constitution and an invasion of the rights of the citizens of other states, utterly inconsistent with the professions made by the slaveholders that they wish the provisions of the Constitution faithfully observed by every state in the Union.
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Twentieth. That the Free Democratic party is not organized to aid either the Whig or Democratic wing of the great slave compromise party of the nation, but to defeat them both; and that, repudiating and renouncing both as hopelessly corrupt and utterly unworthy of confidence, the purpose of the Free Democracy is to take possession of the federal government and administer it for the better protection of the rights and Interests of the whole people.
Twenty-first. That we inscribe on our banner Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men, and under it will fight on and fight ever until a triumphant victory shall reward our exertions.
Twenty-second. That upon this platform the convention presents to the American people as a candidate for the office of President of the United States, John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, and as a candidate for the office of Vice-President of the United States, George W. Julian, of Indiana, and earnestly commends them to the support of all free men and all parties.

Free Soil Party(Wikipedia)

The Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections, and in some state elections. Founded in Buffalo, New York, it was a third party and a single-issue party that largely appealed to and drew its greatest strength from New York State. The party leadership consisted of former anti-slavery members of the Whig Party and the Democratic Party. Its main purpose was opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories, arguing that free men on free soil comprised a morally and economically superior system to slavery. They opposed slavery in the new territories (agreeing with the Wilmot Proviso) and sometimes worked to remove existing laws that discriminated against freed African Americans in states such as Ohio.

The party membership was largely absorbed by the Republican Party in 1854–1856, by way of the Anti-Nebraska movement.

Democratic Party Platform of 1856
1. That the Federal Government is one of limited power, derived solely from the Constitution; and the grants of power made therein ought to be strictly construed by all the departments and agents of the government; and that it is inexpedient and dangerous to exercise doubtful constitutional powers.
2. That the Constitution does not confer upon the General Government the power to commence and carry on a general system of internal improvements.
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6. That the proceeds of the public lands ought to be sacredly applied to the national objects specified in the Constitution; and that we are opposed to any law for the distribution of such proceeds among the States, as alike inexpedient in policy and repugnant to the Constitution.
7. That Congress has no power to charter a national bank; that we believe such an institution one of deadly hostility to the best interests of the country, dangerous to our republican institutions and the liberties of the people, and calculated to place the business of the country within the control of a concentrated money power, and above the laws and the will of the people;
9. That we are decidedly opposed to taking from the President the qualified veto power, by which he is enabled, under restrictions and responsibilities amply sufficient to guard the public interests, to suspend the passage of a bill whose merits cannot secure the approval of two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, until the judgment of the people can be obtained thereon, and which has saved the American people from the corrupt and tyrannical domination of the Bank of the United States, and from a corrupting system of general internal improvements.
10. That the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, and sanctioned by the Constitution, which makes ours the land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation, have ever been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith, and every attempt to abridge the privilege of becoming citizens and the owners of soil among us, ought to be resisted with the same spirit which swept the alien and sedition laws from our statute-books.
And Whereas, Since the foregoing declaration was uniformly adopted by our predecessors in National Conventions, an adverse political and religious test has been secretly organized by a party claiming to be exclusively American, it is proper that the American Democracy should clearly define its relation thereto, and declare its determined opposition to all secret political societies, by whatever name they may be called
ВResolved, That the foundation of this union of States having been laid in, and its prosperity, expansion, and pre-eminent example in free government, built upon entire freedom in matters of religious concernment, and no respect of person in regard to rank or place of birth; no party can justly be deemed national, constitutional, or in accordance with American principles, which bases its exclusive organization upon religious opinions and accidental birth-place. And hence a political crusade in the nineteenth century, and in the United States of America, against Catholic and foreign-born is neither justified by the past history or the future prospects of the country, nor in unison with the spirit of toleration and enlarged freedom which peculiarly distinguishes the American system of popular government.
Resolved, That we reiterate with renewed energy of purpose the well considered declarations of former Conventions upon the sectional issue of Domestic slavery, and concerning the reserved rights of the States.
1. That Congress has no power under the Constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts of the abolitionists, or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of our political institutions.
2. That the foregoing proposition covers, and was intended to embrace the whole subject of slavery agitation in Congress; and therefore, the Democratic party of the Union, standing on this national platform, will abide by and adhere to a faithful execution of the acts known as the compromise measures, settled by the Congress of 1850; "the act for reclaiming fugitives from service or labor," included; which act being designed to carry out an express provision of the Constitution, cannot, with fidelity thereto, be repealed, or so changed as to destroy or impair its efficiency.