he
Republicans in the convention of 1868 declared themselves in sympathy
with all oppressed peoples struggling for their rights and recognized
the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence as a true
foundation of democratic government. That same year, however, the
Democratic party recognized the question of slavery and secession as
having been settled but denounced Negro supremacy.[14]

In 1872 the platform of the Republican party was somewhat more
outspoken. It carried a reference to the suppression of the rebellion,
the emancipation of four million slaves, the grant of equal
citizenship and the establishment of universal suffrage. It said,
moreover, that "neither law nor its administration should attempt any
discrimination in respect to citizens by reason of race, creed, color,
or previous condition of servitude.[15] The Liberal Republicans,
rallying in a different quarter that year, declared in their platform
their belief in the equality of all men before the law and the duty of
the government in all its dealings with the people to mete out equal
and exact justice to all of whatever nativity, race, color or
persuasion, religious or political. The Liberal Republicans pledged
themselves to maintain the union of States, emancipation, and
enfranchisement and to oppose any reopening of the questions settled
by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the
Constitution. They advocated the removal of the disabilities of
Confederates, the establishment of civil government at the South,
universal amnesty, and impartial suffrage.[16]

In 1876 the Negro was given further mention by the various parties.
The Prohibitionists took the lead in the declaration for equal
suffrage and eligibility to office without distinction of race,
religious creed, property or sex.[17] The Republicans referred in
their platform to the permanent restoration of the southern section to
the Union and the complete protection of all citizens in the free
enjoyment of all their rights as an issue to which the Republican
party stood sacredly pledged. "The power to provide for the
enforcement of the principles embodied by the recent constitutional
amendments," continues the platform, "is vested by those amendments in
the Congress of the United States, and we declare it to be a solemn
obligation of the legislative and executive departments of government
to put into immediate and vigorous exercise all their constitutional
powers fo