OCR Text |
Show Declaration of Rights by the People's Party of Utah Territory. The People's Party struggling for the supremacy of constitutional law and the sound privilege of local self government submit the following declaration of principle. 1st. We believe that the protection of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is the object of free government, and that the Constitution of the United States was ordained and established to secure the greatest possible liberty to man, woman and child, consistent with the public welfare. 2nd.We believe that free government can only exist when the people governed participate in the administration thereof. 3rd. We believe that any party or fraction of a political community that seeks to subvert the institution of local self government, aims a deadly ??? at the Constitution, and such a party or faction is unworthy the suffrages of a free people. 4th. We believe that any official who attempts to stifle the popular voice as expressed at the ballot box is guilty of treason against the sovereign people. 5th. We believe in the right to frame laws suited to the requirements of the Territory having been vested by Congress in the Legislature elected by its citizens, to deprive them of that right by substituting a commission, arbitrarily appointed, and thus to disenfranchise a hundred and fifty thousand people and reduce them to a condition of serfdom, would be unprecedented in the history of the union and that it could not be justified by any active necessity, and that the attempt by a pretended political party to create such a revolution in the government of this territory is worthy only of ??? and political adventures. 6th. We believe in the right of the people of a Territory, as well as of a State, of justice in the courts established by the Government, the constitutionality or constitution on any appointment local or Congressional and express our astonishment at the public declaration of a high Federal official of This Territory and the condemnation by a stealthy political party that the people had no rights except such a Congress may grant them and that to differ with the Territorial Executive about the construction of a statute is politication. We utterly repudiate such a monstrous doctrine as worthy alone of the most absolute despotisms and claim that the United States Constitution in its benign provisions extends a shield over the States and Territories of the American Union, and that it is the bounden duty of the Governor as much as the humblest citizen to yield obedience to the laws as they are constructed by the Citizens. We utterly repudiate the unconstitutional attempt by any Executive to usurp and ballot legislative impetus and to hold the American citizen bound by the partial prejudiced, ??? and illegal construction which he may see it for placement by statute. 7th. Citizenship is the basis of the right of suffrage. While the elective franchise is a privilege conferred by law, the qualifications for its exercise grew out of the condition of citizenship and as citizenship is not dependent sex to regulate thereby, whatever right of voting originates in the citizenship of men inheres also in the citizenship of women. Female citizens, equal with male citizens are accountable to the law, therefore, they are entitled to an equal voice with men in the framing of the law. As all just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed, and that consent is expressed by the suffrage and as women as well as men are made subject to the government of this country, the denial of suffrage to women is ??? with the principles which underlie our national institutions. The moral and intellectual, as well as the physical excellence of our sons and daughters being largely dependent upon the mothers who bear and train them the women of the nation should be endowed with full, political freedom. That by being upright families with political rights and principles they were able to instill into the hearts of the rising generation, the spirit of patriotism, the love of liberty and a reverence for republican institutions.. For twelve years the women citizens of Utah have enjoyed the right to vote at all elections in this territory and have exercised it with credit to themselves and to the benefit of the community, and the People's Party hereby denounces the attempts which have been made to deprive women voters of the right of suffrage as illiberal and unmanly insults upon vested rights and upon justice, equality and the principles of popular sovereignty. 8th. We believe in an honest and economical administration, of government that could point with pride to the economy and honesty with which public affairs have been administered by officers elected from the ranks of the People's Party and by the fact that the taxes in Utah are lighter than any other Territory. The Territory is free of debt, the counties with one or two exceptions are in the square satisfactory condition. The trends fail to furnish any instance of embezzlement or misappropriation of fund in any official of that party. On the other hand when by trends committed at the polls, Temple County was wrested from the popular control, the taxes of the County were shamefully misappropriated and embezzled County scrip depreciated from par to less than fifty cents on the dollar, and even by that economy and honesty of the People's officials when they assumed control of its affairs ??? although its paper is worth ninety per cent. French County is not yet quite out of debt, and has not fully recovered from the evils of Liberal rule. 9th. We repudiate and deny the charges of lawlessness, which have been made against the people of Utah, and as proof that the slanders are without foundation, we point to the trends of the Courts, the chief of which are not in any way in the control of the people, and which demonstrate the striking fact that the so-called "Liberal" class, constituting less than twenty per cent of the population of the Territory furnishes over eighty per cent of the criminals. 10th. We further repudiate and deny the charges that in Utah a Church dominates the State, that priestly control is aimed in any manner to impinge upon the freedom of the individual either at the polls, in convention or in any official capacity, stint, perjury or falsehood of any kind, is justified, whether for the protection of persons from the action of the law or for any other purpose whatever that intolerance is, exhibited either for the discouragement of emigration, the settlement of public domain or invasion of the rights of any individual, that did ??? taxation is either encouraged or permitted; that the tenets of a church are taught in the district schools, or that the people are influenced to disloyalty or antagonism in the Government of the United States or any representative. 11th. We affirm that it is the duty of every American citizen to render obedience to the Constitution of the United States and every law enacted in pursuance thereof. 12th. We affirm with confidence that the Territory of Utah having the requisite population and exhibiting all the qualifications necessary to self-government, its people being exceptionally honest, thrifty, sober, frugal, and peaceable, is entitled to admission into the Union as a sovereign State. 13th. We pledge ourselves as a party to the maintenance and defense of constitutional principles and the unalienable rights of mankind and proclaim ourselves the friends of true liberty - civil, political and religious - to all people in every part of the habitable globe. |