Faithful Encounters Authorities and

American Missionaries in the Ottoman

Empire Emrah ■ahin
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/faithful-encounters-authorities-and-american-mission
aries-in-the-ottoman-empire-emrah-sahin/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

American Missionaries in Iran during the 1960s and

1970s Philip O. Hopkins

https://textbookfull.com/product/american-missionaries-in-iran-
during-the-1960s-and-1970s-philip-o-hopkins/

Scholars and Sultans in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire

1st Edition Abdurrahman Atç■l

https://textbookfull.com/product/scholars-and-sultans-in-the-
early-modern-ottoman-empire-1st-edition-abdurrahman-atcil/

Germany and the Ottoman Railways Art Empire and

Infrastructure Peter H. Christensen

https://textbookfull.com/product/germany-and-the-ottoman-
railways-art-empire-and-infrastructure-peter-h-christensen/

Useful enemies: Islam and the Ottoman empire in western

political thought, 1450-1750 First Edition Malcolm

https://textbookfull.com/product/useful-enemies-islam-and-the-
ottoman-empire-in-western-political-thought-1450-1750-first-
edition-malcolm/
Under Osman s Tree The Ottoman Empire Egypt and
Environmental History Alan Mikhail

https://textbookfull.com/product/under-osman-s-tree-the-ottoman-
empire-egypt-and-environmental-history-alan-mikhail/

Labor and Power in the Late Ottoman Empire: Tobacco

Workers, Managers, and the State, 1872–1912 Can Nacar

https://textbookfull.com/product/labor-and-power-in-the-late-
ottoman-empire-tobacco-workers-managers-and-the-
state-1872-1912-can-nacar/

The Berlin Baghdad Railway and the Ottoman Empire

Industrialization Imperial Germany and the Middle East
Murat Özyüksel

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-berlin-baghdad-railway-and-
the-ottoman-empire-industrialization-imperial-germany-and-the-
middle-east-murat-ozyuksel/

Global Temperance and the Balkans American Missionaries

Swiss Scientists and Bulgarian Socialists 1870 1940
Nikolay Kamenov

https://textbookfull.com/product/global-temperance-and-the-
balkans-american-missionaries-swiss-scientists-and-bulgarian-
socialists-1870-1940-nikolay-kamenov/

Spiritual Subjects: Central Asian Pilgrims and the

Ottoman Hajj at the End of Empire 1st Edition Lale Can

https://textbookfull.com/product/spiritual-subjects-central-
asian-pilgrims-and-the-ottoman-hajj-at-the-end-of-empire-1st-
edition-lale-can/
 fa i t h f u l e n c o u n t e r s

30171_Sahin.indd 1 18-08-14 11:34

 McGill-Q ­ u e e n ’s S t u di e s i n t h e H i s to ry o f Religio n
Volumes in this series have been supported by the Jackman
Foundation of Toronto.

s e ri e s o ne : g .a . r awly k , e d i to r

1 Small Differences 10 God’s Peoples

Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, Covenant and Land in South
1815–1922 Africa, Israel, and Ulster
An International Perspective Donald Harman Akenson
Donald Harman Akenson
11 Creed and Culture
2 Two Worlds The Place of English-­Speaking Catholics
The Protestant Culture of in Canadian Society, 1750–1930
Nineteenth-­Century Ontario Edited by Terrence Murphy
William Westfall and Gerald Stortz

3 An Evangelical Mind 12 Piety and Nationalism

Nathanael Burwash and the Lay Voluntary Associations and
Methodist Tradition in Canada, the Creation of an Irish-­Catholic
1839–1918 Community in Toronto, 1850–1895
Marguerite Van Die Brian P. Clarke

4 The Dévotes 13 Amazing Grace

Women and Church in
Seventeenth-­Century France
Elizabeth Rapley
5 The Evangelical Century
College and Creed in English Canada
from the Great Revival to the Great
Depression
Michael Gauvreau
6 The German Peasants’ War and
Anabaptist Community of Goods
James M. Stayer
7 A World Mission
Canadian Protestantism and the Quest
for a New International Order,
1918–1939
Robert Wright
8 Serving the Present Age
Revivalism, Progressivism, and the
Methodist Tradition in Canada
Phyllis D. Airhart
9 A Sensitive Independence
Canadian Methodist Women
Missionaries in Canada and the Orient,
1881–1925
Rosemary R. Gagan
Studies in Evangelicalism in Australia,
Britain, Canada, and the United States
Edited by George Rawlyk
and Mark A. Noll
14 Children of Peace
W. John McIntyre
15 A Solitary Pillar
Montreal’s Anglican Church
and the Quiet Revolution
Joan Marshall
16 Padres in No Man’s Land
Canadian Chaplains and the Great War
Duff Crerar
17 Christian Ethics and Political Economy
in North America
A Critical Analysis
P. Travis Kroeker
18 Pilgrims in Lotus Land
Conservative Protestantism in
British Columbia, 1917–1981
Robert K. Burkinshaw
19 Through Sunshine and Shadow
The Woman’s Christian
Temperance Union, Evangelicalism,
and Reform in Ontario, 1874–1930
Sharon Cook

30171_Sahin.indd 2 18-08-14 11:34

 20 Church, College, and Clergy
A History of Theological
Education at Knox College,
Toronto, 1844–1994
Brian J. Fraser
21 The Lord’s Dominion
The History of Canadian Methodism
Neil Semple
22 A Full-­Orbed Christianity
The Protestant Churches and Social
Welfare in Canada, 1900–1940
Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau
23 Evangelism and Apostasy
The Evolution and Impact
of Evangelicals in Modern Mexico
Kurt Bowen
s e ri e s t wo: i n me mo ry of g e o r ge rawlyk
d o n al d ha r ma n a k e n so n , e di tor
1 Marguerite Bourgeoys and Montreal,
1640–1665
Patricia Simpson
2 Aspects of the Canadian
Evangelical Experience
Edited by G.A. Rawlyk
3 Infinity, Faith, and Time
Christian Humanism and
Renaissance Literature
John Spencer Hill
4 The Contribution of Presbyterianism
to the Maritime Provinces of Canada
Edited by Charles H.H. Scobie
and G.A. Rawlyk
5 Labour, Love, and Prayer
Female Piety in Ulster Religious
Literature, 1850–1914
Andrea Ebel Brozyna
6 The Waning of the Green
Catholics, the Irish, and Identity
in Toronto, 1887–1922
Mark G. McGowan
7 Religion and Nationality
in Western Ukraine
The Greek Catholic Church
and the Ruthenian National
Movement in Galicia, 1867–1900
John-­Paul Himka
30171_Sahin.indd 3
24 The Chignecto Covenanters
A Regional History of Reformed
Presbyterianism in New Brunswick
and Nova Scotia, 1827–1905
Eldon Hay
25 Methodists and Women’s
Education in Ontario, 1836–1925
Johanne Selles
26 Puritanism and Historical
Controversy
William Lamont
8 Good Citizens
British Missionaries and Imperial States,
1870–1918
James G. Greenlee and
Charles M. Johnston
9 The Theology of the Oral Torah
Revealing the Justice of God
Jacob Neusner
10 Gentle Eminence
A Life of Cardinal Flahiff
P. Wallace Platt
11 Culture, Religion, and Demographic
Behaviour Catholics and Lutherans
in Alsace, 1750–1870
Kevin McQuillan
12 Between Damnation and Starvation
Priests and Merchants
in Newfoundland Politics,
1745–1855
John P. Greene
13 Martin Luther, German Saviour
German Evangelical Theological
Factions and the Interpretation
of Luther, 1917–1933
James M. Stayer
14 Modernity and the Dilemma
of North American Anglican
Identities, 1880–1950
William H. Katerberg
18-08-14 11:34
 15 The Methodist Church on
the Prairies, 1896–1914
George Emery
16 Christian Attitudes towards
the State of Israel
Paul Charles Merkley
17 A Social History of the Cloister
Daily Life in the Teaching
Monasteries of the Old Regime
Elizabeth Rapley
18 Households of Faith
Family, Gender, and Community
in Canada, 1760–1969
Edited by Nancy Christie
19 Blood Ground
Colonialism, Missions, and the Contest
for Christianity in the Cape Colony
and Britain, 1799–1853
Elizabeth Elbourne
20 A History of Canadian Catholics
Gallicanism, Romanism, and
Canadianism
Terence J. Fay
21 The View from Rome
Archbishop Stagni’s 1915
Reports on the Ontario Bilingual
Schools Question
Edited and translated by
John Zucchi
22 The Founding Moment
Church, Society, and the
Construction of Trinity College
William Westfall
23 The Holocaust, Israel, and
Canadian Protestant Churches
Haim Genizi
24 Governing Charities
Church and State in Toronto’s
Catholic Archdiocese, 1850–1950
Paula Maurutto
25 Anglicans and the Atlantic World
High Churchmen, Evangelicals,
and the Quebec Connection
Richard W. Vaudry
30171_Sahin.indd 4
26 Evangelicals and the
Continental Divide
The Conservative Protestant Subculture
in Canada and the United States
Sam Reimer
27 Christians in a Secular World
The Canadian Experience
Kurt Bowen
28 Anatomy of a Seance
A History of Spirit Communication
in Central Canada
Stan McMullin
29 With Skilful Hand
The Story of King David
David T. Barnard
30 Faithful Intellect
Samuel S. Nelles and
Victoria University
Neil Semple
31 W. Stanford Reid
An Evangelical Calvinist
in the Academy
Donald MacLeod
32 A Long Eclipse
The Liberal Protestant
Establishment and the Canadian
University, 1920–1970
Catherine Gidney
33 Forkhill Protestants and Forkhill
Catholics, 1787–1858
Kyla Madden
34 For Canada’s Sake
Public Religion, Centennial
Celebrations, and the Re-­making
of Canada in the 1960s
Gary R. Miedema
35 Revival in the City
The Impact of American
Evangelists in Canada, 1884–1914
Eric R. Crouse
36 The Lord for the Body
Religion, Medicine, and
Protestant Faith Healing in
Canada, 1880–1930
James Opp
18-08-14 11:34
 37 Six Hundred Years of Reform
Bishops and the French Church,
1190–1789
J. Michael Hayden and
Malcolm R. Greenshields
38 The Missionary Oblate Sisters
Vision and Mission
Rosa Bruno-­Jofré
39 Religion, Family, and Community
in Victorian Canada
The Colbys of Carrollcroft
Marguerite Van Die
40 Michael Power
The Struggle to Build the Catholic
Church on the Canadian Frontier
Mark G. McGowan
41 The Catholic Origins of Quebec’s Quiet
Revolution, 1931–1970
Michael Gauvreau
42 Marguerite Bourgeoys and the
Congregation of Notre Dame,
1665–1700
Patricia Simpson
43 To Heal a Fractured World
The Ethics of Responsibility
Jonathan Sacks
44 Revivalists
Marketing the Gospel in
English Canada, 1884–1957
Kevin Kee
45 The Churches and Social Order
in Nineteenth-­and Twentieth-­
Century Canada
Edited by Michael Gauvreau
and Ollivier Hubert
46 Political Ecumenism
Catholics, Jews, and Protestants in
De Gaulle’s Free France, 1940–1945
Geoffrey Adams
47 From Quaker to Upper Canadian
Faith and Community among Yonge
Street Friends, 1801–1850
Robynne Rogers Healey
48 The Congrégation de Notre-­Dame,
Superiors, and the Paradox of Power,
1693–1796
Colleen Gray
30171_Sahin.indd 5
49 Canadian Pentecostalism
Transition and Transformation
Edited by Michael Wilkinson
50 A War with a Silver Lining
Canadian Protestant Churches
and the South African War,
1899–1902
Gordon L. Heath
51 In the Aftermath of Catastrophe
Founding Judaism, 70 to 640
Jacob Neusner
52 Imagining Holiness
Classic Hasidic Tales in Modern Times
Justin Jaron Lewis
53 Shouting, Embracing, and
Dancing with Ecstasy
The Growth of Methodism in
Newfoundland, 1774–1874
Calvin Hollett
54 Into Deep Waters
Evangelical Spirituality and
Maritime Calvinist Baptist
Ministers, 1790–1855
Daniel C. Goodwin
55 Vanguard of the New Age
The Toronto Theosophical
Society, 1891–1945
Gillian McCann
56 A Commerce of Taste
Church Architecture in
Canada, 1867–1914
Barry Magrill
57 The Big Picture
The Antigonish Movement
of Eastern Nova Scotia
Santo Dodaro and Leonard Pluta
58 My Heart’s Best Wishes for You
A Biography of Archbishop
John Walsh
John P. Comiskey
59 The Covenanters in Canada
Reformed Presbyterianism
from 1820 to 2012
Eldon Hay
18-08-14 11:34
 60 The Guardianship of Best Interests 71 The Cistercian Arts
Institutional Care for the Children From the 12th to the 21st Century
of the Poor in Halifax, 1850–1960 Edited by Terryl N. Kinder
Renée N. Lafferty and Roberto Cassanelli

61 In Defence of the Faith 72 The Canny Scot

Joaquim Marques de Araújo, Archbishop James Morrison
a Brazilian Comissário in the of Antigonish
Age of Inquisitional Decline Peter Ludlow
James E. Wadsworth
73 Religion and Greater Ireland
62 Contesting the Moral High Ground Christianity and Irish Global
Popular Moralists in Mid-­ Networks, 1750–1950
Twentieth-­Century Britain Edited by Colin Barr and
Paul T. Phillips Hilary M. Carey

63 The Catholicisms of Coutances 74 The Invisible Irish

Varieties of Religion in Early Finding Protestants in the Nineteenth-­
Modern France, 1350–1789 Century Migrations to America
J. Michael Hayden Rankin Sherling

64 After Evangelicalism 75 Beating against the Wind

The Sixties and the United Popular Opposition to Bishop Feild
Church of Canada and Tractarianism in Newfoundland
Kevin N. Flatt and Labrador, 1844–1876
Calvin Hollett
65 The Return of Ancestral Gods
Modern Ukrainian Paganism 76 The Body or the Soul?
as an Alternative Vision Religion and Culture in a Quebec
for a Nation Parish, 1736–1901
Mariya Lesiv Frank A. Abbott

66 Transatlantic Methodists 77 Saving Germany

British Wesleyanism and North American Protestants and
the Formation of an Evangelical Christian Mission to West Germany,
Culture in Nineteenth-­Century 1945–1974
Ontario and Quebec James C. Enns
Todd Webb
78 The Imperial Irish
67 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Canada’s Irish Catholics Fight the Great
Making and Remaking the United War, 1914–1918
Church of Canada Mark G. McGowan
Phyllis D. Airhart
79 Into Silence and Servitude
68 Fighting over God How American Girls Became Nuns,
A Legal and Political History 1945–1965
of Religious Freedom in Canada Brian Titley
Janet Epp Buckingham
80 Boundless Dominion
69 From India to Israel Providence, Politics, and the Early
Identity, Immigration, and the Struggle Canadian Presbyterian Worldview
for Religious Equality Denis McKim
Joseph Hodes
81 Faithful Encounters
70 Becoming Holy in Early Canada Authorities and American Missionaries
Timothy G. Pearson in the Ottoman Empire
Emrah Şahin

30171_Sahin.indd 6 18-08-14 11:34

 FA ITHFUL E NCO UN TERS

Authorities and American Missionaries

in the Ottoman Empire

e m r a h şa h İ n

McGill-­Queen’s University Press

Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

30171_Sahin.indd 7 18-08-14 11:34

 © McGill-Queen’s University Press 2018

ISBN 978-0-7735-5461-0 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-7735-5462-7 (paper)
ISBN 978-0-7735-5549-5 (eP DF )
ISBN 978-0-7735-5550-1 (eP UB)
Legal deposit third quarter 2018
Bibliothèque nationale du Québec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free
(100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian
Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to
Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which
last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout
the country.
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier,
le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie
des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Şahin, Emrah, 1980–, author
Faithful encounters: authorities and American missionaries in the
Ottoman Empire / Emrah Şahin.
(McGill-Queen’s studies in the history of religion. Series two; 81)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISB N 978-0-7735-5461-0 (cloth). – IS BN 978-0-7735-5462-7 (paper). –
ISB N 978-0-7735-5549-5 (eP DF ). – IS BN 978-0-7735-5550-1 (eP U B )
1. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. 2. Missions,
American – Turkey – History – 19th century. 3. Missions, American – Turkey –
History – 20th century. 4. Turkey – Church history – 19th century. 5. Turkey –
Church history – 20th century. I. Title. II. Series: McGill-Queen’s studies
in the history of religion. Series two; 81
BV 3170.S24 2018 266.009561 C 2018-903203-0
C2018-903204-9

This book was typeset by Marquis Interscript in 10.5 / 13 Sabon.

30171_Sahin.indd 8 18-08-14 11:34

 Contents

Illustrations xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Note on Translation xv
Prologue xvii

1 Introduction 3
2 Strangers in the Land 14
3 Crime and Order 38
4 Institutional Regulations 72
5 Ink Saw the Daylight 99

Epilogue: The Mighty Have Fallen 133

Notes 139
Bibliography 193
Index 225

30171_Sahin.indd 9 18-08-14 11:34

30171_Sahin.indd 10 18-08-14 11:34
 Illustrations

1.1 Map showing American missionaries in Ottoman provinces,

1900. Drawn by Rachel Geshay. 2
2.1 Drawing of first Parliament meeting at the Çırağan Palace,
1877. In Spry, Life on the Bosphorus, 733. 18
2.2 Newspaper cover depicting the affairs of Turkey and Armenia.
In L’Univers illustré (Paris), 16 November 1895. 20
3.1 Citizen letters imploring officials to save Ellen Stone.
In The World (New York), 7 October 1901. 39
3.2 Photo of George Perkins Knapp (d. 1915), 1886–87. By Pach
Brothers. Courtesy of Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum,
transfer from the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. 58
5.1 Photo of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions, Istanbul, 1859. Original at Amherst College and
Boğaziçi University. 106

30171_Sahin.indd 11 18-08-14 11:34

30171_Sahin.indd 12 18-08-14 11:34
 Acknowledgments

I felt dismayed. In April 2001 I visited the chair of the History

Department at Middle East Technical University. Nearing graduation,
I decided to enter graduate school to study Muslim and Christian
relations. When I solicited advice, the chair pointed to the cheval glass
by the door. “Look in the mirror,” he said, “and then tell me if you
see a man who can juggle that huge ball of research.” I did look but
did not understand what my intellectual prowess had to do with my
physical preparedness. The chair was telling me that I did not fit
advanced research because I was a nobody, a peasant kid educated
in a low-profile religious high school. The message was to give it up.
Those who inspire. I decided to see for myself, and the most creative
minds became my inspiration. Stanford Shaw, Halil İnalcık, and Kemal
Karpat put their faith in me. Gonda Van Steen, Üner Turgay, Jason
Opal, Timothy Roberts, and Edward Kohn encouraged my intellectual
pursuits. I also learned from them a valuable lesson, namely that true
scholarship is the sum of three assets: a pure interest in knowledge,
a critical mind, and a procedural system. Without their knowledge,
friendship, and advice, I could have given up writing this book.
Those who give. Many good people lent me their support without
expecting anything in return. Laila Parsons and my dissertation com-
mittee, comprised of Ariel Salzmann, Malek Abisaab, Rex Brynen,
Jason Opal, and Üner Turgay, gave me thought-provoking ideas.
Michelle Campos, Kemal Karpat, and Benjamin Soares oversaw my
drafts. Selçuk Esenbel and Suraiya Faroqhi listened to me. I received
insightful comments and constructive criticisms from many colleagues,
including Deanna Womack, Owen Miller, Christine Lindner, and
Ellinor Morack. During the 2016 Florida panel “Turkish-American

30171_Sahin.indd 13 18-08-14 11:34

 xiv Acknowledgments

Encounters,” Justin McCarthy and Ross Wilson reviewed my views

of Ottoman statecraft. İhsan Sezal and Haldun Yalçınkaya hosted me
as a writing scholar in Turkey, and while in the United States, I received
welcome distractions from my colleagues Alice Freifeld, Edit Nagy,
Matthew Jacobs, Tamir Sorek, Terje Østebø, and Tom Kostopoulos.
Rachel Geshay drew the exact same map as the one I had in mind.
My reading friends, Maithili Jais, Greg Mason, and Hasher Majoka,
helped me to clarify my thoughts. At McGill-Queen’s University Press,
senior editor Kyla Madden bestowed all of the patience and expertise
I could hope for as an author. Thanks to her, I looked for the truth
of what had happened rather than building a case to support my
narratives. The press’s anonymous readers paved the way for a his-
torico-critical approach, and assiduous experts, like copy editor Robert
Lewis, helped with the wording. Despite the prospect of working with
other university presses in Utah and Massachusetts, publishing with
McGill-Queen’s became the more exciting reality because it bestowed
upon me, a proud Canadian, the honour of launching my first book
at home.
I received acknowledgment. Supporters and shortcomings not-
withstanding, I selfishly took much credit for a work in progress.
Bilkent University, Harvard University, McGill University, the Turkish-
American Association and the US Embassy in Ankara, the National
Library of Turkey, and the Ottoman Archives accommodated and
funded my research agenda at critical moments. Gleaned from my
research findings, my presentations also received memorable awards,
including a Turkish Cultural Foundation Fellowship and a Sakıp
Sabancı International Research Award.
Those who exist. I owe dearest thanks to my family, friends, and
students. My students motivated me with their genuine comments in
class and outside. Çağlar Doğuer, Gonda Van Steen, Hakan Gelgeç,
Haluk Gelgeç, Haluk Karadağ, Sean Swanick, Özlem Ayar, and many
more friends made my tasks bearable, which included writing this
manuscript, teaching ten courses a year, serving on departmental
committees, and organizing public events. My beautiful wife, Sema,
my mother, Ayşe, and my daughters, Elif Neva and Zeynep Sena, made
the journey delightful and meaningful.
I wish to dedicate this book to those who exist, inspire, and give.
I believe that my book is a statement of how far my research has come
since I saw the department chair in April 2001 – and looked “in the
mirror” in his office.

30171_Sahin.indd 14 18-08-14 11:34

 Note on Translation

The naming of the lands and peoples of the Ottoman Empire is com-
plicated. In Turkey, southeast Europe, and the Middle East, American
missionaries and modern authorities have used the same, similar, and
different names for them. For the purposes of coherency, consistency,
and relevance, this book prefers anglophone names or original names
in the absence of anglophone names. In the terms transcribed from
Ottoman Turkish to modern Turkish, c is pronounced like j, ç is ch,
and ş is sh. The silent ğ lengthens the preceding vowel. The letter i is
pronounced like io in “motion,” ö is like the French eu in “peu,” and
ü is like the French u in “lune.” The bibliography includes translations
of non-English sources used in the manuscript. I have made all of the
translations by respecting the original text and applying English
expressions if necessary to render the contextual meaning.

30171_Sahin.indd 15 18-08-14 11:34

30171_Sahin.indd 16 18-08-14 11:34
 Prologue

fa i t h a n d t h e fa i t h f u l

This book may well change the way you think about the Ottomans.
The context is the late Ottoman world stretching from eastern Europe
to the Middle East. The characters are the sultans and bureaucrats
who managed this vast region from the capital city of Istanbul, the
local agents who executed the capital’s orders, and the Protestant
missionaries who engaged with them in dialogue and deed. The matter
is how Muslim authorities treated Christian missionaries.
Christian missionaries belonged to the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions. New England evangelicals
founded this organization in 1810 with an ambitious mandate to
civilize the world. They invested the largest amounts of assets in their
missions to Ottoman communities. Figures for 1909 indicate the
breadth and wealth of these missions, recording 169 American mis-
sionaries, 65,240 native workers and adherents, 57 schools, 20 hos-
pitals, and 125 churches – along with $99,111.07 in locally collected
donations. This enterprise, seconded by missions to Imperial China,
merits study in its own right. This book explores especially how the
Ottoman authorities noticed, assessed, and handled the evangelical
news. Evangelical missionaries raised the stakes precisely because
their ideals and outreach collided with imperial faith and order.1
Faith mattered in the Ottoman Empire. It forged the imperial self-
concept and public order. A confluence of classic, Islamic, and prag-
matic models transformed the state edifice over the long term. But
faith, in and of itself, netted greater than the sum of applied models.
Its presence transcended time and space. Imperial authorities saw the

30171_Sahin.indd 17 18-08-14 11:34

 xviii Prologue

wider world figuratively on a map of green, red, and white – three

shades of faith depicting the abodes of Islam, war, and peace. Foreign
nations thus had to decide whether to become Turks by joining the
eternal state, to fight the Turks to the end, or to ally with them in
trade and times of war. Salient examples that illustrate these scenarios
are, respectively, the conquest of Bosnia in 1463, protracted wars with
the Habsburgs, and the well-honoured Franco-Turkish alliance.2
Called millets, local communities coexisted as discrete faith units.
These people made similar choices about submission, resistance, or
exchanging favours. In the vision of the avant-garde modernizer
Sultan Mahmud II, the central state “shall only differentiate” the
“Muslim subjects at the mosque,” “Christian subjects at the church,”
and “Jewish subjects at the synagogue.” A step outside God’s house,
Mahmud called them all “my sons and daughters.” In fact, however,
faith meant more than ritual visibility. The matters of faith subsumed
and disrupted realities even in the speech of a fatherly sultan. The
imperial state strayed further away from the Mahmudian ethics as
its bureaucrats began to ascribe to a new type of unconditional
political trust, aiming to restore the faith of local subjects in the
imperial order.3
The bureaucrats called the sultan’s house to order in post-­
Mahmudian decades. This period marked some serious trouble exacer-
bated by internal traumas such as bankruptcy, disorder, and massacres
– along with external pressures regarding European political and
religious claims, as in France’s occupation of Egypt and later interfer-
ence in the Catholic millet’s affairs. Then American missionaries came
aboard, showing a real potential to breach the empire’s faith defences,
which were virtually crumbling from the inside out. Dramatically,
Mahmud’s vision was transformed into an illusion of faithful order
and then collapsed as an obsolete resolution.4
Historians have not overlooked American missionaries in the
Middle East. Yet practically every scholar examines missionary
accounts to discuss modernity and the American involvement in the
region. They reference the missionaries while debating the issues of
ethnicity, education, gender, religion, and society. The extant studies
tend to repeat a binary pattern, portraying evangelical missionaries
as “liberal thinkers” or “warm and smiley faces” who concealed the
“cold face” of American imperialism. These versions likewise describe
Ottoman authorities as “autocratic” or “double-faced,” largely due
to the actions of Abdulhamid II, the despotic sultan from 1876 to

30171_Sahin.indd 18 18-08-14 11:34

 Prologue xix

1909. In his classic book Protestant Diplomacy and the Near East,
for instance, Joseph Grabill claims that Ottoman imperial authorities
did not appreciate the “considerable benevolence and aid” shown by
American missionaries. Such narratives teach us about the mission-
aries’ accomplishments, but they impart little about imperial perspec-
tives and nearly nothing about the chemistry of state policies and
local realities. In my version, I illustrate how imperial authorities
made sense of missionary exchanges and formulated certain responses
to them.5
The assertive turn in later policies reflected prevalent views in the
state centre. Strikingly, state bureaucrats imagined local subjects as
“ignorant masses.” In their elite minds, the rural people were remin-
iscent of the people in Plato’s cave, who were chained in a dark place
and thus unqualified to know the truth from its mere reflection on
the cave wall. They seemed naturally vulnerable and notoriously prone
to manipulation in troubled times. This mentality invented a moral
pretext for powerful statesmen to mould their superior body into a
purported common good. European and homegrown literature often
streamlined this govern-mental transition. The ideas of prolific intel-
lectuals, especially Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo,
Émile Durkheim, Şemsettin Sami, and Ahmet Mithat, placed the
establishment bureaucrats virtually at a crossroads between the world
of passion and intrigue and the world of tradition and reality. The
vogue also initiated some unpredictable reactions in downtown
Istanbul in April 1873 when performances of Namık Kemal’s play
Fatherland or Silistria electrified huge crowds. Its patriotic and irreden-
tist message goaded the crowds into protesting about the regime.
Sultan Abdülaziz eventually pushed Kemal and his colleagues into
exile. By agitating the public purposely or not, homegrown authors
walked a fine line between law and chaos. In this case, Kemal suffered
punishment for his alleged trespass into the latter.6
The life of Mehmet Faik Memduh encapsulates the careers and
minds of establishment bureaucrats. He was born in 1839 into a
prominent family. His grandfather Ömer Lütfi led the Izmir Tax and
Customs Office, and his father, Mustafa Fehmi, administered the
sultan’s private treasury. Memduh studied sciences and French before
interning in the Communications Department of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. He then became the chief correspondent in the
Ministries of Education and Finance, served on the Financial Affairs
and State Councils, and governed the provinces of Konya, Sivas, and

30171_Sahin.indd 19 18-08-14 11:34

 xx Prologue

Ankara. Meanwhile, he standardized the state recruitment protocol

and regulated the main tasks assigned to public security officers. While
at his later post as the interior minister (1895–1908), Memduh worked
with the purpose of centralizing the imperial state. His political and
social platform issued from his field experience. He had governed in
Konya during the great famine of 1887–88 and in Sivas during the
ethnic clash of 1889–92.7
Memduh envisioned the Ottoman world as a garden and its subjects
as delicate flowers desiring affection and upkeep. In his book The
Mirror of Affairs, he described his species as the educated, loyal, and
Muslim “cream of the crop.” He suggested that only they could grasp
“realities” and correct “ignorant masses.” Memduh accordingly
ordered the Ministry of the Interior to teach loyalties and preach to
locals. He calculated they would halt colonial and local chaos this
way. Under the watch of foreign and public powers, such strategic
views turned into a litmus test when put into effect.8
Above all, bureaucrats and missionaries claimed the fate of locals
in this world and thereafter. To evaluate the intensity and quality of
their outlook, it is necessary to turn to their contacts and conflicts.
In doing so, I proceed from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth
century, revealing how ideas, conditions, agents, and groups interacted;
in other words, I aim your attention at the discursive, imaginative,
institutional, and social realms. This book may well change the way
you think about the Ottoman Empire as it weaves Ottoman property
into the evangelical narrative. Religious interactions are fascinating
as well. Given that past Muslim-Christian interactions have stunning
relevance to the present, it is even more significant to read the clam-
ouring Turkish and Muslim voices that have echoed across time. When
listened to closely, these voices allow us to retrieve from the past some
familiar rhythms of how politics and religions generate difficult situa-
tions – and all the while the instrumental characters counteract and
interact with each other through a vocabulary commonly shared by
faith and the faithful.

encounters in context

Recent hate crimes have revived an old debate in Turkey. Several

attackers have hit local minorities on recent occasions, including the
firebombing of the International Protestant Church in the capital city
of Ankara and the torture of an American missionary in the Syrian

30171_Sahin.indd 20 18-08-14 11:34

 Prologue xxi

border town of Antep. Although these assaults yielded no casualties,

they heralded the fiercest of their kind. It happened on 18 April 2007
at the Zirve Publishing House, a Protestant publisher of Bibles located
in the eastern city of Malatya. Five young Muslim nationalists
patiently waited for the converted pastor Necati Aydın to start his
sermon. Once the sermon began, they unleashed carnage on the
unsuspecting congregation. They tied the pastor and his parishioners,
Tilman Geske and Uğur Yüksel, to chairs and then tortured and mas-
sacred them.9
Police officers hotly pursued and apprehended the subjects. As
interrogations proceeded, the focus of the case shifted from the cold-
blooded act itself to a discussion about the Ergenekon – an alleged
ultra-nationalist, secularist, and secret organization aiming to oust
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s party from government. The
perpetrators had visited the crime scene several times and had report-
edly met the victims before the day of the incident. During the trial,
the chief perpetrator, Yunus Günaydın, mentioned that Varol Aral,
an Ergenekon member who was a journalist, had urged somebody to
“step up and do something about the missionary activity.” He sought
“state support” and asked whether Günaydın would volunteer. Aral
also prodded him to hit the Zirve Publishing House by persuading
him that its staff operated as an enemy of the state – namely as a
tentacle of the Partiya Karkeren Kurdistane (Kurdish Workers Party),
whose terrorists have been fighting for three decades to liberate eastern
Turkey in order to benefit the Kurdish people. When the judge called
for a merger of the Zirve case with the Ergenekon trial, nobody pre-
dicted that the case would drag on for nine years and more than a
hundred sessions.10
The Zirve massacre sparked immediate reaction in Turkey and
abroad. Hamza Özant, the director of the Zirve Publishing House,
regretted not summoning police for protection after receiving threat-
ening calls. Local supporters of the Malatya Soccer Club denounced
the massacre in a game against the Gençlerbirliği Soccer Club, shout-
ing, “We Condemn Terror!” Meanwhile, thousands paraded through
Taksim, Istanbul’s central square, to demand human rights modelled
after the European Convention on Human Rights. The Christian
Concern and other organizations expressed condolences about the
“satanic” act, demanding in the same breath that the killers be pros-
ecuted. Turkish authorities also denounced the “savagery,” vowing to
punish the “slayers.” Their raging and mourning aside, the authorities

30171_Sahin.indd 21 18-08-14 11:34

 xxii Prologue

were put in the spotlight by international media already suspicious

about their sincerity.11
Turkey’s report card showed repeated failure to protect civil liber-
ties and legal practices. From an outside perspective, the resurgence
of religious violence seemed to unmask the ethos of the Turkish admin-
istration. Critics became deeply skeptical of the government’s action
plan on the Zirve incident – even though the prime minister declared
that “we, the people of responsibility,” would be “willing and able to
catch the perpetrators.” Given the glaring failure of the Turkish state
to deliver criminal justice, official statements sounded rather hypo-
critical when state authorities announced that the judicial process
was already “well underway” and that they would remain “supportive
of it.”12
Prominent linguist and activist Noam Chomsky reflected on the
chronic violence in the region and endorsed the January 2016
Academics for Peace petition. He dubbed the petition an intellectual
call for “the state to punish those who are responsible for human
rights violations” and “compensate those citizens who have experi-
enced material and psychological damage.” The collective effort regis-
tered 2,218 scholarly signatures against forced migrations, civilian
deaths, state-sanctioned curfews, and entrenchment campaigns
ongoing in southeastern towns. Somewhat indignant, Chomsky also
rejected Erdoğan’s invitation to visit Turkey and “see with his own
eyes what is really going on.” He certainly would “not visit the site”
when government authorities were perpetrating “a deliberate massacre
of Kurdish and other peoples in the region,” as well as not pushing
through any reforms at all. Then, once again, violence flared up when
Turkish officials undercut their legitimacy by not practising what they
were preaching. Inconsistent political discourse undermined the
nation’s prestige at home and abroad as well.13
Where hate crimes evoked the pathos of past tragedies, news outlets
chimed in and opined that ethno-religious terror had struck root in
the Islamic world. Figuratively, the Zirve assailants seemed to be
some kind of shamans who had resurrected the barbaric and bestial
spirits of the Muslim Turk, once destroyed with the dismantling of
the Ottoman Empire. While Der Spiegel portrayed them as part of
the larger organized “attack on Christians,” other papers blamed the
Turkish state for “fanning the growing hostility against non-Muslims.”
In the partisan view of the bulletin the Florida Baptist Witness, state
officials were traditionally malevolent. “The prosecutors and police

30171_Sahin.indd 22 18-08-14 11:34

 Prologue xxiii

authorities” remained generally “reluctant to pursue reported incidents

of vandalism or threats against church buildings or personnel.”14
Protestant missionaries imbued the media coverage with historical
drama. Thomas Schirrmacher, the director of the International Institute
for Religious Freedom, construed the situation of Christians in Muslim
lands against the backdrop of the latest massacre. He portrayed the
members of “the tiny Protestant or Evangelical minority” as the victims
of “uninterrupted and unrestrained slander,” as they were still suffering
from unfair treatment by “the highest levels in the government.” For
nationalists and Islamists, “their dislike of Turkish Christians” is the
“one thing on which they strongly agree.” They talk “about overly
aggressive missions” even when they see a Muslim purchasing the
Bible from a local store. This sort of incident might happen “only in
Turkey.” Given the anti-Christian consensus, the Zirve massacre
“almost had to happen.”15
The Middle East may strike some evangelical eyes as a region that
has succumbed to the Islamic-Turkish yoke over the centuries. In
Schirrmacher’s view, for instance, the Ottoman Turks granted local
churches little to no “freedom of religion.” The First World War halted
their reign and at long last ended “the time of the Sultans.” The region’s
upward march regressed to anguish, however, as ethno-religious fan-
aticism returned with poignant force. Historical memory and personal
calamity likewise harboured much pessimism about local minorities.
As social chaos resumed, Schirrmacher martyred his own student,
Necati Aydın, in the Zirve massacre.16
It is true that the time of the sultans is over and that the local people
are permitted to practise the ways of their races and creeds in complete
freedom. But ethnic hostility and religious terror continue and thus
compel our attention to their historical context. If we can retrieve
from social memory the relevant cases of savagery, violence, and
massacres, it is also timely and critical for us to evaluate the ways
that Muslim authorities treated Christian missionaries and local min-
orities. Consequently, this examination will revolve around Istanbul
for understanding the heart of the Ottoman administration, all the
while explaining the inner dynamics of the Ottoman world by con-
veying the variety of local narratives.17
The tragic progress of the Zirve case presents more lessons harking
back to Ottoman history. After numerous sessions, the Penal Court
decided to free the suspects while monitoring their movements through
the use of trackable bracelets in March 2014. Although the court’s

30171_Sahin.indd 23 18-08-14 11:34

 xxiv Prologue

decision satisfied the statute regarding case-time limitations, it ignored

substantial evidence against the suspects. It also exposed the nation’s
precarious legal standards and shook the public’s fragile trust in state
authority. The court’s verdict certainly embittered the plaintiff’s griev-
ing family. Even Tilman Geske’s kind and mild-mannered widow made
a statement of reproach, saying, “Of course, this is injustice.”18
Two years after the Zirve gang was freed, the court conducted a
retrospective study. The judge found the pre-existing risk of an attack
to be a cause of the incident and declared the official ranks guilty of
“defective service” for not preventing it. He ordered that the Ministry
of the Interior and the City Governor’s Office pay the plaintiff Geske
family damages of $138,616. His ruling referenced the European
Convention’s legal standards as stipulated in article 9, which states,
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and reli-
gion,” including “freedom to change his religion or belief” and “free-
dom, either alone or in community with others and in public or
private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice
and observance.” Although this landmark order signified progress
toward religious freedoms and healed sentimental wounds, the plain-
tiff’s family would rather not have seen “the murderers walk free”
than be awarded the money.19
The trial’s concluding verdict came on 28 September 2016 – after
115 sessions, eight years, eleven months, and fourteen days. In the
last session, the Ergenekon journalist Varol Aral claimed the Zirve
massacre to be “a crime of national consensus.” The perpetrators also
did “not wish to be sentenced” for a state-planned crime and sought
“refuge in the justice and conscience” of the state court. The verdict
sentenced the murderers to “aggravated life in prison” and released
the journalist. The court closed the case with specific evidence still
unexamined. As much as the Geske family wished the massacre had
not occurred, their victimhood supported the legal maxim that justice
belated is justice denied.20
What follows is the Ottoman context in which religious encounters
took place.

the ottoman world

The Ottoman Empire symbolized exchanges between Europe and the

Orient. It had become a world power by the sixteenth century,

30171_Sahin.indd 24 18-08-14 11:34

 Prologue xxv

stretching from southeast Europe to southwest Asia. A range of cul-

tural and political dynamics created the Ottoman world. These dynam-
ics offer the key to understanding missionary activities and modern
nations in the region.21
The Ottomans began in a favourable location. Unlike the peoples
of other Turkic principalities huddled within Anatolia, they were nestled
on the Byzantine Empire’s wavering eastern frontier and courted
Turcoman-Muslim tribes migrating westward. Although the incoming
tribes fought to conquer the Christian lands, imperial state leadership
and local Christians were both entwined in the social fabric. The con-
flux of positive developments expanded the frontier, and all the while
the expanding frontier bolstered the accommodating authority, military
ascension, and economic vitality. With the conquest of Constantinople
in 1453, the Ottoman state emerged as a European Muslim great
power. As Constantinople became Istanbul, imperial authorities set
the essentials of their ruling standards. Professional bureaucrats steered
administration under the sultan’s authority in compliance with state
laws that combined Turkish mores, Islamic laws, and local circum-
stances. They likewise categorized local subjects into confessional
communities and made them the foundation of social order.22
A concerted force of opponents contested the aggressive expansion
of the Ottoman Empire. As the Ottoman realm had reached its limits
bordering the Habsburg Empire and Persia by the sixteenth century,
the imperial army started waging protracted battles on both sides and
the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, the Ottoman monopoly on global
trade networks faded with competition and the invention of alterna-
tive trade routes. State bureaucrats in Istanbul launched a series of
massive reforms in November 1839 to restore the health of the empire
– an empire then called the “sick man of Europe” by foreign diplomats
and intellectuals. Their agenda focused on revising laws, finances, and
liberties, but their success eventually depended on a fine compromise
between state sensibilities and novel ideologies, such as nationalism
and positivism. The bureaucratic soul-searching crossed three ideo-
logical currents – Ottomanism, Islamism, and Turkism – and con-
verged over negative developments. In fact, the imperial state was
lacking consensus, its army was losing battles, and Europe-based
colonial aggression was undermining the state’s integrity. After all,
local subjects rejected the ideologies ascribed from the centre. Christian
minorities were demanding independence, or at least autonomy.23

30171_Sahin.indd 25 18-08-14 11:34

 xxvi Prologue

State Formation

Ottoman sultans originated among the Oghuz Turks, a group of

central Asian nomads who migrated to western Eurasia in the ninth
century. From the founder, Osman, to Mehmet II (1299–1481), the
first seven generations of them pursued a hyperactive protocol of
engagement and settlement, transforming an insignificant chiefdom
into a veritable empire. Places, people, and faith cooperated along
the way.24
Osman’s principality had stepped into an unguarded space in west-
ern Anatolia. His army – positioned between vulnerable yet rich
Byzantine townships on the western flank and quarrelling Turkish
principalities on the eastern flank – attacked the Christian west while
waiting out the Muslim east. The Turcoman-Muslim converts, then
fleeing from the marauding Mongol Empire, supplied the Ottoman
forces with soldiers and labourers. The sultans granted pasturelands
for the converts’ herds and parlayed their fighting talents into further
expansion. Indeed, all ambitions led to the west. The holy-war ideal
precipitated spatial advance toward Europe and political ambivalence
toward the Turkic-sibling rivalries on the eastern flank.25
Diverse communities and a nuanced brand of nonegalitarian toler-
ance emerged in the post-expansion era. Strikingly, imperial authorities
sanctioned Muslim dervishes to settle and proselytize in new lands
but prohibited any possibilities of conversion from Islam. American
missionaries contacted non-Muslim minorities partly because the
Ottoman state set punitive barriers to Muslim missions and partly
because the Muslims disdained them.26

Historical Condition

The conquest of Istanbul fashioned economic dynamism and political

consolidation in the late fifteenth century. As the empire’s eastern and
western domains merged, Ottoman merchants prevailed in the
Mediterranean trade. In the south, the locals annexed in Mecca,
Medina, and Cairo lauded the Ottoman sultans as leaders of the
Muslims. Indeed, for five centuries following the conquest of Egypt
in August 1516, the Ottoman state had wielded political and spiritual
leadership in the Islamic world. During this time, decisive victories
delivered vast territories from Algeria to Belgrade and secure access
to the Persian Gulf. The diplomatic overtures bore alliances with the

30171_Sahin.indd 26 18-08-14 11:34

 Prologue xxvii

Dutch Republic, England, and France, together aspiring to envelop

their common enemies, Austria, Spain, and Italy.27
New shipping technologies, trade routes, and industrialized com-
petition challenged the Ottoman monopoly on the Mediterranean
trade. When coupled with catastrophic defeats after the failed siege
of Vienna in September 1683, such developments induced the Ottoman
authorities to find ways to restore the central state and its revenues.
However, the mounting crisis did not correlate with European progress
because internal problems were exacerbated in parallel with external
failures. Although authorities, merchants, and intellectuals knew what
was going on in Europe, they worried more about what was going
wrong within the Ottoman Empire. Their inward-looking approach
emphasized collective alienation from traditional and Islamic roots,
widespread official corruption, inadequate military performance, and
several individual insurgents who were provoking local subjects to
nonconformity. The imperial authorities adopted a mix of progressive
reforms and coercive measures in response.28
The Ottoman Empire tottered from crisis to crisis and then dis-
solved. Following a humiliating defeat against Russia in 1774, the
imperial delegation signed the Küçük Kaynarca Treaty, admitting that
their non-Muslim subjects could be a topic of diplomatic discussion.
They also declared bankruptcy upon the failure to repay emergency
loans taken out later during the Crimean War (1853–56). Two decades
later, the Public Debt Administration overtook imperial revenue
streams under the pretext of collecting the payments owed to European
banks and companies.29
The ambitious reform agenda coped with local nationalist move-
ments and with arrangements of the United States. As a political
and social force, nationalism penetrated the Ottoman world from
western provinces and galvanized the Balkan peoples. The first
revolution, staged by the Serbian subjects and suppressed by Janissary
rulers, opened the pathway to disintegration. The second revolution
created modern Serbia a decade later in 1814, thus offering an aspir-
ing path for the Greek, Moldavian, and Bulgarian communities. The
Arab, Armenian, and Kurdish peoples also followed suit, albeit with
little or no success. Besides the rampant public disorder, successive
military defeats and weakening diplomatic clout persuaded imperial
authorities to launch a process of reformation. Called Tanzimat
(1839–76), the reform project made three key adjustments by cen-
tralizing the state, modernizing the military, and bestowing civil

30171_Sahin.indd 27 18-08-14 11:34

 xxviii Prologue

liberties. Further regulations emulated European practices, developed

a modern financial and educational system, and granted liberties to
the minorities.30
As progressive reforms failed to stem the civil crisis, Ottoman
authorities sought to bond their diverse subjects by ascribing them
an adjoined Ottoman, Islamic, and Turkish collective identity. Some
limited impact aside, these invented ideologies did not inspire fond-
ness for the state. Identity politics did not strike a chord with the
public even after the pro-reformer, extroverted, elite bureaucrats
integrated French institutions and liberties into the imperial system.
From 1876 onward, the new Constitutional Parliament continued to
discuss the limits of amendments, freedoms, and rights.31
In Istanbul intellectuals and officers drew up separate agendas for
reconstruction, but they all found a common enemy in the person of
Sultan Abdulhamid II. In fact, the proactive members of the Young
Turk movement organized secret committees and defamation cam-
paigns as part of a widespread effort to outmanoeuvre him. Although
the powerhouse Union and Progress Committee splintered on the
course of action, the movement’s inner caucuses agreed on radical
modernization. In particular, Turkish nationalist members agreed to
topple the regime. Union and Progress members coalesced with a
secret association of Turkish officials and officers in Thessaloniki.
They staged the July 1908 revolution and proclaimed the Constitutional
Era. Strikingly, the Young Turks founded an air force, sanctioned the
first women’s organization, and screened the first Turkish movie with
an anti-Russian storyline. They also launched soccer teams in Istanbul
and funded two Ottoman athletes to compete in the 1912 Olympic
Games in Stockholm. Put together, such ambitious projects attempted
to advertise the Young Turk regime by modernizing the military,
empowering women, and importing competitive sports.32
The post-revolution government nevertheless staggered under
weighty matters. The committee-controlled armed forces fought in
North Africa, the Balkans, and then the First World War as a German
ally, but wartime measures and mobilization would prove disastrous
for local communities. Internecine strife surged, forced deportations
became commonplace, and ethnic massacres took place. Eventually,
in August 1920, the Sèvres Treaty recognized Armenia and the
Kingdom of Hejaz as new countries, while authorizing the victorious
powers to create regional spheres of influence. It also subdued the
Ottoman imperial state. Specific treaty articles required downsizing

30171_Sahin.indd 28 18-08-14 11:34

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
known as the “Riddleberger bill,” passed by the last General
Assembly and vetoed by the Governor. We maintain that this
measure recognizes the just debt of Virginia, in this, that it assumes
two-thirds of all the money Virginia borrowed, and sets aside the
other third to West Virginia to be dealt with by her in her own way
and at her own pleasure; that it places those of her creditors who
have received but 6 per cent. instalments of interest in nine years
upon an exact equality with those who by corrupt agencies were
enabled to absorb and monopolize our means of payment; that it
agrees to pay such rate of interest on our securities as can with
certainty be met out of the revenues of the State, and that it contains
all the essential features of finality.
Third. We reassert our adherence to the Constitutional
requirements for the “equal and uniform” taxation of property,
exempting none except that specified by the Constitution and used
exclusively for “religious, charitable and educational purposes.”
Fourth. We reassert that the paramount obligation of the various
works of internal improvement is to the people of the State, by whose
authority they were created, by whose money they were constructed
and by whose grace they live; and it is enjoined upon our
representative and executive officers to enforce the discharge of that
duty; to insure to our people such rates, facilities and connections as
will protect every industry and interest against discrimination, tend
to the development of our agricultural and mineral resources,
encourage the investment of active capital in manufactures and the
profitable employment of labor in industrial enterprises, grasp for
our city and our whole State those advantages to which by their
geographical position they are entitled, and fulfil all the great public
ends for which they were designed.
Fifth. The Readjusters hold the right to a free ballot to be the right
preservative of all rights, and that it should be maintained in every
State in the Union. We believe the capitation tax restriction upon the
suffrage in Virginia to be in conflict with the XIVth Amendment to
the Constitution of the United States. We believe that it is a violation
of that condition of reconstruction wherein the pledge was given not
so to amend our State Constitution as to deprive any citizen or class
of citizens of a right to vote, except as punishment for such crimes as
are felony at common law. We believe such a prerequisite to voting to
be contrary to the genius of our institutions, the very foundation of
which is representation as antecedent to taxation. We know that it
has been a failure as a measure for the collection of revenue, the
pretended reason for its invention in 1876, and we know the base,
demoralizing and dangerous uses to which it has been prostituted.
We know it contributes to the increase of monopoly power, and to
corrupting the voter. For these and other reasons we adhere to the
purpose hitherto expressed to provide more effectual legislation for
the collection of this tax, dedicated by the Constitution to the public
free schools, and to abolish it as a qualification for and restriction
upon suffrage.
Sixth. The Readjusters congratulate the whole people of Virginia
on the progress of the last few years in developing mineral resources
and promoting manufacturing enterprises in the State, and they
declare their purpose to aid these great and growing industries by all
proper and essential legislation, State and Federal. To this end they
will continue their efforts in behalf of more cordial and fraternal
relations between the sections and States, and especially for that
concord and harmony which will make the country to know how
earnestly and sincerely Virginia invites all men into her borders as
visitors or to become citizens without fear of social or political
ostracism; that every man, from whatever section of country, shall
enjoy the fullest freedom of thought, speech, politics and religion,
and that the State which first formulated these principles as
fundamental in free government is yet the citadel for their exercise
and protection.

Virginia Democratic.

[Adopted August 4.]

The Conservative-Democratic party of Virginia—Democratic in its
Federal relations and Conservative in its State policy—assembled in
convention, in view of the present condition of the Union and of this
Commonwealth, for the clear and distinct assertion of its political
principles, doth declare that we adopt the following articles of
political faith:
 First. Equality of right and exact justice to all men, special
privileges to none; freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and
freedom of the person under the protection of the habeas corpus; of
trial by juries impartially selected, and of a pure, upright and non-
partisan judiciary; elections by the people, free from force or fraud of
citizens or of the military and civil officers of Government; and the
selection for public offices of those who are honest and best fitted to
fill them; the support of the State governments in all their rights as
the most competent administrations of our domestic concerns and
the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; and the
preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional
vigor as the best sheet-anchor of our peace at home and our safety
abroad.
Second. That the maintenance of the public credit of Virginia is an
essential means to the promotion of her prosperity. We condemn
repudiation in every shape and form as a blot upon her honor, a blow
at her permanent welfare, and an obstacle to her progress in wealth,
influence and power; and that we will make every effort to secure a
settlement of the public debt, with the consent of her creditors,
which is consistent with her honor and dictated by justice and sound
public policy; that it is eminently desirable and proper that the
several classes of the debt now existing should be unified, so that
equality, which is equity, may control in the annual payment of
interest and the ultimate redemption of principal; that, with a view of
securing such equality, we pledge our party to use all lawful authority
to secure a settlement of the State debt so that there shall be but one
class of the public debt; that we will use all lawful and constitutional
means in our power to secure a settlement of the State debt upon the
basis of a 3 per cent. bond, and that the Conservative-Democratic
party pledges itself, as a part of its policy, not to increase the present
rate of taxation.
Third. That we will uphold, in its full constitutional integrity and
efficiency, our public school system for the education of both white
and colored children—a system inaugurated by the Constitution of
the State and established by the action of the Conservative party
years before it was required by the Constitution; and will take the
most effectual means for the faithful execution of the same by
applying to its support all the revenues set apart for that object by
the Constitution or otherwise.
Fourth. Upon this declaration of principles we cordially invite the
co-operation of all Conservative Democrats, whatever may have been
or now are their views upon the public debt, in the election of the
nominees of this Convention and in the maintenance of the
supremacy of the Democratic party in this State.
Resolved, further, That any intimation, coming from any quarter,
that the Conservative-Democratic party of Virginia has been, is now,
or proposes to be, opposed to an honest ballot and a fair count, is a
calumny upon the State of Virginia as unfounded in fact as it is
dishonorable to its authors.
That special efforts be made to foster and encourage the
agricultural, mechanical, mining, manufacturing and other industrial
interests of the State.
That, in common with all good citizens of the Union, we reflect
with deep abhorrence upon the crime of the man who aimed a blow
at the life of the eminent citizen who was called by the constitutional
voice of fifty millions of people to be the President of the United
States; and we tender to him and to his friends the sympathy and
respect of this Convention and of those we represent, in this great
calamity, and our hearty desire for his complete restoration to health
and return to the discharge of his important duties, for the welfare
and honor of our common country.

1884—Democratic Platform.

Adopted by the Chicago Convention, July 10th.

The Democratic party of the Union through its representatives in
the National Convention assembled, recognizes that as the Nation
grows older new issues are born, of time and progress, and old issues
perish. But the fundamental principles of the Democracy approved
by the united voice of the people, remain and will ever remain as the
best and only security for the continuance of free government. The
preservation of personal rights, the equality of all citizens before the
law, the reserved rights of the States and the supremacy of the
Federal Government within the limits of the Constitution will ever
form the true basis of our liberties, and can never be surrendered
without destroying that balance of rights and powers which enables a
continent to be developed in peace, and social order to be maintained
by means of local self-government. But it is indispensable for the
practical application and enforcement of these fundamental
principles that the Government should not always be controlled by
one political party. Frequent change of administration is as necessary
as a constant recurrence to the popular will. Otherwise abuses grow,
and the Government, instead of being carried on for the general
welfare, becomes an instrumentality for imposing heavy burdens on
the many who are governed for the benefit of the few who govern.
Public servants thus become arbitrary rulers.
This is now the condition of the country, hence a change is
demanded. The Republican party, so far as principle is concerned, is
a reminiscence in practice, it is an organization for enriching those
who control its machinery. The frauds and jobbery which have been
brought to light in every department of the Government are
sufficient to have called for reform within the Republican party. Yet
those in authority, made reckless by the long possession of power,
have succumbed to its corrupting influences, and have placed in
nomination a ticket against which the Independent portion of the
party are in open revolt. Therefore a change is demanded. Such a
change was alike necessary in 1876, but the will of the people was
then defeated by a fraud which can never be forgotten nor condoned.
Again in 1880 the change demanded by the people was defeated by
the lavish use of money, contributed by unscrupulous contractors
and shameless jobbers, who had bargained for unlawful profits or for
high office.
The Republican party during its legal, its stolen and its bought
tenures of power, has steadily decayed in moral character and
political capacity. Its platform promises are now a list of its past
failures. It demands the restoration of our navy. It has squandered
hundreds of millions to create a navy that does not exist. It calls
upon Congress to remove the burdens under which American
shipping has been depressed. It imposed and has continued those
burdens. It professes the policy of reserving the public lands for
small holdings by actual settlers. It has given away the people’s
heritage till now a few railroads and non-resident aliens, individual
and corporate, possess a larger area than that of all our farms
between the two seas. It professes a preference for free institutions.
It organized and tried to legalize a control of State elections by
Federal troops. It professes a desire to elevate labor. It has subjected
American workingmen to the competition of convict and imported
contract labor. It professes gratitude to all who were disabled or died
in the war leaving widows and orphans. It left to a Democratic House
of Representatives the first effort to equalize both bounties and
pensions. It proffers a pledge to correct the irregularities of our tariff.
It created and has continued them. Its own tariff commission
confessed the need of more than 20 per cent. reduction. Its Congress
gave a reduction of less than 4 per cent. It professes the protection of
American manufacturers. It has subjected them to an increasing
flood of manufactured goods and a hopeless competition with
manufacturing nations, not one of which taxes raw materials. It
professes to protect all American industries. It has impoverished
many to subsidize a few. It professes the protection of American
labor. It has depicted the returns of American agriculture, an
industry followed by half our people. It professes the equality of men
before the law. Attempting to fix the status of colored citizens, the act
of its Congress was overset by the decision of its courts. It “accepts
anew the duty of leading in the work of progress and reform.” Its
caught criminals are permitted to escape through contrived delays or
actual connivance in the prosecution. Honeycombed with corruption,
outbreaking exposures no longer shock its moral sense, its honest
members. Its independent journals no longer maintain a successful
contest for authority in its counsels or a veto upon bad nominations.
That a change is necessary is proved by an existing surplus of more
than $100,000,000, which has yearly been collected from a suffering
people. Unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation. We denounce the
Republican party for having failed to relieve the people from
crushing war taxes which have paralyzed business, crippled industry,
and deprived labor of employment and of just reward. The
Democracy pledges itself to purify the administration from
corruption, to restore economy, to revive the respect of the law, and
to reduce taxation to the lowest limit consistent with due regard to
the preservation of the faith of the nation to its creditors and
pensioners.
 Knowing full well, however that legislation affecting the
occupations of the people should be cautious and conservative in
method, not in advance of public opinion, but responsive to its
demands, the Democratic party is pledged to revise the tariff in a
spirit of fairness to all. But in making a reduction in taxes, it is not
proposed to injure any domestic industries, but rather to promote
their healthy growth. From the foundation of this Government taxes
collected at the custom-house have been the chief source of Federal
revenue. Such they must continue to be. Moreover, many industries
have come to rely upon legislation for successful continuance, so that
any change of law must be at every step regardful of the labor and the
capital thus involved. The process of reform must be subject in the
execution to this plain dictate of justice. All taxation shall be limited
to the requirements of economical government. The necessary
reduction in taxation can and must be effected without depriving
American labor of the ability to compete successfully with foreign
labor, and without imposing lower rates of duty than will be ample to
cover any increased cost of production which may exist in
consequence of the higher rate of wages prevailing in this country.
Sufficient revenue to pay all the expenses of the Federal Government,
economically administered, including pensions, interest and
principal of the public debt, can be got, under our present system of
taxation, from custom house taxes on fewer imported articles,
bearing heaviest on articles of luxury, and bearing lightest on articles
of necessity. We therefore denounce the abuses of the existing tariff,
and subject to the preceding limitations, we demand that Federal
taxation shall be exclusively for public purposes and shall not exceed
the needs of the Government economically administered.
The system of direct taxation, known as the “internal revenue,” is a
war tax, and so long as the law continues, the money derived
therefrom should be sacredly devoted to the relief of the people from
the remaining burdens of the war, and be made a fund to defray the
expense of the care and comfort of the worthy soldiers disabled in
line of duty in the wars of the Republic, and for the payment of such
pensions as Congress may from time to time grant to such soldiers, a
like fund for the sailors having been already provided; and any
surplus should be paid into the treasury.
 We favor an American continental policy, based upon more
intimate commercial and political relations with the fifteen sister
Republics of North, Central and South America, but entangling
alliances with none. We believe in honest money, the gold and silver
coinage of the Constitution, and a circulating medium convertible
into such money without loss.
Asserting the equality of all men before the law, we hold that it is
the duty of the Government, in its dealings with the people, to mete
out equal and exact justice to all citizens, of whatever nativity, race,
color or persuasion, religious or political. We believe in a free ballot
and a fair count, and we recall to the memory of the people the noble
struggle of the Democrats in the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth
Congresses by which a reluctant Republican opposition was
compelled to assent to legislation making everywhere illegal the
presence of troops at the polls, as the conclusive proof that a
Democratic administration will preserve liberty with order. The
selection of Federal officers for the Territories should be restricted to
citizens previously resident therein. We oppose sumptuary laws,
which vex the citizens and interfere with individual liberty. We favor
honest civil service reform, and the compensation of all United States
officers by fixed salaries; the separation of Church and State and the
diffusion of free education by common schools, so that every child in
the land may be taught the rights and duties of citizenship.
While we favor all legislation which will tend to the equitable
distribution of property to the prevention of monopoly, and to the
strict enforcement of individual rights against corporate abuses, we
hold that the welfare of society depends upon a scrupulous regard for
the rights of property as defined by law.
We believe that labor is best rewarded where it is freest and most
enlightened. It should, therefore, be fostered and cherished. We
favor the repeal of all laws restricting the free action of labor, and the
enactment of laws by which labor organizations may be
incorporated, and of all such legislation as will tend to enlighten the
people as to the true relations of capital and labor.
We believe that the public lands ought, as far as possible, to be
kept as homesteads for actual settlers; that all unearned lands
heretofore improvidently granted to railroad corporations by the
action of the Republican party, should be restored to the public
domain, and that no more grant of land shall be made to
corporations, or be allowed to fall into the ownership of alien
absentees. We are opposed to all propositions which upon any
pretext would convert the General Government into a machine for
collecting taxes to be distributed among the States or the citizens
thereof.
All the great woes of our country have come because of imported
labor. Our fathers made this land the home of the free for all men
appreciating our institutions, with energy enough to bring
themselves here, and such we welcome, but our country ought never
to be a lazar-house for the deportation of the pauper labor of other
countries through governmental aid, or the importation of the same
kind of labor as an instrument with which capital can debase
American workingmen and women from the proud position they
now occupy by competing with them by imported labor or convict
labor, while at the same time capital asks and receives protection of
its interests at the hands of the Government, under guise of
providing for American labor. This evil like all others finds birth in
the cupidity and selfishness of men. The laborer’s demands should
be redressed by law. Labor has a right to demand a just share of the
profits of its own productions.
The future of the country unites with the laboring men in the
demand for the liberal support by the United States of the school
system of the States for the common education of all the children,
the same affording a sufficient foundation for the coming
generations to acquire due knowledge of their duties as citizens.
That every species of monopoly engenders two classes, the very
rich and the very poor, both of which are equally hurtful to a
Republic which should give to its people equal rights and equal
privileges under the law.
That the public lands of the United States were the equal heritage
of all the citizens and should have been held open to the use of all in
such quantities only as are needed for cultivation and improvement
by all. Therefore we view with alarm the absorption of these lands by
corporations and individuals in large areas, some of them more than
equal to princely domains, and demand of Congress to apply
appropriate remedies with a stern hand so that the lands of the
people may be held by the many and not by the few.
 That the public lands of the Nation are held by the Government in
trust for those who make their homes in the United States, and who
mean to become citizens of the Republic, and we protest against the
purchase and monopolization of these lands by corporations and the
alien aristocracy of Europe.
That all corporate bodies, created either in the States or Nation for
the purpose of performing public duties, are public servants and to
be regulated in all their actions by the same power that created them
at its own will, and that it is within the power and is the duty of the
creator to so govern its creature that by its acts it shall become
neither a monopoly nor a burden upon the people, but be their
servant and convenience, which is the true test of its usefulness.
Therefore we call upon Congress to exercise its great constitutional
powers for regulating inter-estate commerce to provide that by no
contrivance whatever, under forms of law or otherwise, shall
discriminating rates and charges for the transportation of freight and
travel be made in favor of the few against the many or enhance the
rates of transportation between the producer and the consumer.
The various offices of the Government belong to the people thereof
and who rightfully demand to exercise and fill the same whenever
they are fitted by capacity, integrity and energy, the last two
qualifications never to be tested by any scholastic examination. We
hold that frequent changes of Federal officials are shown to be
necessary. First, to counteract the growing aristocratic tendencies to
a caste of life offices. Second, experience having shown that all
investigation is useless while the incumbent and his associates hold
their places. Frequent change of officers is necessary to the discovery
and punishment of frauds, peculations, defalcations and
embezzlements of the public money.
In reaffirming the declaration of the Democratic platform of 1856,
that “The liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration
of Independence and sanctioned in the Constitution, which make
ours a land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation
have ever been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith,” we
nevertheless do not sanction the importation of foreign labor or the
admission of servile races, unfitted by habits, training, religion or
kindred for absorption into the great body of our people, or for the
citizenship which our laws confer. American civilization demands
that against the immigration or importation of Mongolians to these
shores our gates be closed. The Democratic party insists that it is the
duty of this Government to protect with great fidelity and vigilance
the rights of its citizens, native and naturalized, at home and abroad;
and to the end that this protection may be assured to the United
States, papers of naturalization, issued by courts of competent
jurisdiction, must be respected by the executive legislative
departments of our own Government and by all foreign powers. It is
an imperative duty of this Government to efficiently protect all the
rights of persons and property of every American citizen in foreign
lands, and demand and enforce full reparation for any violation
thereof. An American citizen is only responsible to his own
Government for an act done in his own country or under her flag,
and can only be tried therefore on her own soil and according to her
laws; and no power exists in this Government to expatriate an
American citizen to be tried in any foreign land for any such act. This
country has never had a well defined and executed foreign policy,
save under the Democratic administration. That policy has never
been in regard to foreign Nations, so long as they do not act
detrimental to the interests of the country or hurtful to our citizens,
to let them alone. That as the result of this policy we recall the
acquisition of Louisiana, Florida, California and of the adjacent
Mexican Territory by purchase alone, and contrast these grand
acquisitions of Democratic Statesmanship with the purchase of
Alaska, the sole fruit of a Republican administration of nearly a
quarter of a century.
The Federal Government should care for and improve the
Mississippi river and other great water ways of the Republic, so as to
secure for the interior States easy and cheap transportation to tide
water.
Under a long period of Democratic rule and policy our merchant
marine was fast overtaking and on the point of outstripping that of
Great Britain. Under twenty-five years of Republican rule and policy
our commerce has been left to British bottoms, and almost has the
American flag been swept off the high seas. Instead of the
Republican party’s British policy, we demand for the people of the
United States an American policy. Under Democratic rule and policy
our merchants and sailors flying the stars and stripes in every port,
successfully searched out a market for the varied products of
American industry. Under a quarter of a century of Republican rule
and policy, despite our manifest advantage over all other nations,
high-paid labor, favorable climates and teeming soils; despite
freedom of trade among these United States; despite their population
by the foremost races of men and the annual immigration of the
young, thrifty and adventurous of all nations; despite our freedom
here from the inherited burdens of life and industry in the Old World
monarchies—their costly war navies, their vast tax-consuming, non-
producing standing armies; despite twenty years of peace—that
Republican rule and policy have managed to surrender to Great
Britain, along with our commerce, the control of the markets of the
world. Instead of the Republican party’s British policy, we demand in
behalf of the American Democracy an American policy. Instead of
the Republican party’s discredited scheme and false pretense of
friendship for American labor, expressed by imposing taxes, we
demand in behalf of the Democracy freedom for American labor by
reducing taxes, to the end that these United States may compete with
unhindered powers for the primacy among nations in all the arts of
peace and fruits of liberty.
With profound regret we have been apprised by the venerable
statesman through whose person was struck that blow at the vital
principle of republics—acquiescence in the will of the majority—that
he cannot permit us again to place in his hands the leadership of the
Democratic hosts for the reason that the achievement of reform in
the administration of the Federal Government is an undertaking now
too heavy for his age and failing strength. Rejoicing that his life has
been prolonged until the general judgment of our fellow-countrymen
is united in the wish that, wrong were righted in his person for the
Democracy of the United States, we offer to him in his withdrawal
from public career not only our respectful sympathy and esteem, but
also the best homage of freedom, the pledge of our devotion to the
principles and the cause now inseparable in the history of this
Republic, from the labors and the name of Samuel J. Tilden.
With this statement of the hopes, principles and purposes of the
Democratic party, the great issue of reform and change in
administration is submitted to the people in calm confidence that the
popular voice will pronounce in favor of new men and new and more
favorable conditions for the growth of industry, the extension of
trade, the employment and due reward of labor and capital and the
general welfare of the whole country.

1884.—Republican Platform.

Adopted by the Chicago Convention, June 3d to 6th.

The Republicans of the United States, in National Convention
assembled, renew their allegiance to the principles upon which they
have triumphed in six successive Presidential elections, and
congratulate the American people on the attainment of so many
results in legislation and administration by which the Republican
party has, after saving the Union, done so much to render its
institutions just, equal and beneficent—the safeguard of liberty and
the embodiment of the best thought and highest purposes of our
citizens. The Republican party has gained its strength by quick and
faithful response to the demands of the people for the freedom and
the equality of all men; for a united nation, assuring the rights of all
citizens; for the elevation of labor; for an honest currency; for purity
in legislation, and for integrity and accountability in all departments
of the Government; and it accepts anew the duty of leading in the
work of progress and reform.
We lament the death of President Garfield, whose sound
statesmanship, long conspicuous in Congress, gave promise of a
strong and successful administration, a promise fully realized during
the short period of his office as President of the United States. His
distinguished success in war and in peace has endeared him to the
hearts of the American people.
In the administration of President Arthur we recognise a wise,
conservative, and patriotic policy, under which the country has been
blessed with remarkable prosperity, and we believe his eminent
services are entitled to, and will receive, the hearty approval of every
citizen.
It is the first duty of a good Government to protect the rights and
promote the interests of its own people. The largest diversity of
industry is most productive of general prosperity and of the comfort
and independence of the people. We, therefore, demand that the
imposition of duties on foreign imports shall be made, not for
revenue only, but that in raising the requisite revenues for the
Government such duties shall be so levied as to afford security to our
diversified industries and protection to the rights and wages of the
laborer, to the end that active and intelligent labor, as well as capital,
may have its just reward, and the laboring man his full share in the
national prosperity.
Against the so-called economic system of the Democratic party
which would degrade our labor to the foreign standard, we enter our
earnest protest. The Democratic party has failed completely to
relieve the people of the burden of unnecessary taxation by a wise
reduction of the surplus.
The Republican party pledges itself to correct the inequalities of
the tariff, and to reduce the surplus, not by the vicious and
indiscriminate process of horizontal reduction, but by such methods
as will relieve the taxpayer without injuring the laborer or the great
productive interests of the country.
We recognize the importance of sheep husbandry in the United
States, the serious depression which it is now experiencing and the
danger threatening its future prosperity; and we therefore respect
the demands of the representatives of this important agricultural
interest for a readjustment of duty upon foreign wool, in order that
such industry shall have full and adequate protection.
We have always recommended the best money known to the
civilized world, and we urge that an effort be made to unite all
commercial nations in the establishment of an international
standard which shall fix for all the relative value of gold and silver
coinage.
The regulation of commerce with foreign nations and between the
States is one of the most important prerogatives of the General
Government, and the Republican party distinctly announces its
purpose to support such legislation as will fully and efficiently carry
out the constitutional power of Congress over inter-State commerce.
The principle of the public regulation of railway corporations is a
wise and salutary one for the protection of all classes of the people,
and we favor legislation that shall prevent unjust discrimination and
excessive charges for transportation, and that shall secure to the
people and to the railways alike the fair and equal protection of the
laws.
We favor the establishment of a national bureau of labor, the
enforcement of the eight hour law, and a wise and judicious system
of general education by adequate appropriation from the national
revenues wherever the same is needed. We believe that everywhere
the protection to a citizen of American birth must be secured to
citizens of American adoption, and we favor the settlement of
national differences by international arbitration.
The Republican party having its birth in a hatred of slave labor,
and in a desire that all men may be free and equal, is unalterably
opposed to placing our workingmen in competition with any form of
servile labor, whether at home or abroad. In this spirit we denounce
the importation of contract labor, whether from Europe or Asia, as
an offense against the spirit of American institutions, and we pledge
ourselves to sustain the present law restricting Chinese immigration,
and to provide such further legislation as is necessary to carry out its
purposes.
The reform of the civil service, auspiciously begun under
Republican administration, should be completed by the further
extension of the reformed system, already established by law, to all
the grades of the service to which it is applicable. The spirit and
purpose of the reform should be in all executive appointments, and
all laws at variance with the objects of existing reformed legislation
should be repealed, to the end that the danger to free institutions
which lurks in the power of official patronage may be wisely and
effectively avoided.
The public lands are a heritage of the people of the United States,
and should be reserved, as far as possible, for small holdings by
actual settlers. We are opposed to the acquisition of large tracts of
these lands by corporations or individuals, especially where such
holdings are in the hands of non-resident aliens, and we will
endeavor to obtain such legislation as will tend to correct this evil.
We demand of Congress the speedy forfeiture of all land grants
which have lapsed by reason of non-compliance with acts of
incorporation, in all cases where there has been no attempt in good
faith to perform the conditions of such grants.
 The grateful thanks of the American people are due to the Union
soldiers and sailors of the late war, and the Republican party stands
pledged to suitable pensions for all who were disabled, and for the
widows and orphans of those who died in the war. The Republican
party also pledges itself to the repeal of the limitation contained in
the arrears act of 1879, so that all invalid soldiers shall share alike
and their pensions shall begin with the date of disability or
discharge, and not with the date of their application.
The Republican party favors a policy which shall keep us from
entangling alliances with foreign nations, and which shall give the
right to expect that foreign nations shall refrain from meddling in
American affairs—the policy which seeks peace, and can trade with
all Powers, but especially with those of the Western Hemisphere.
We demand the restoration of our navy to its old-time strength
and efficiency, that it may, in any sea, protect the rights of American
citizens and the interests of American commerce, and we call upon
Congress to remove the burdens under which American shipping has
been depressed, so that it may again be true that we have a
commerce which leaves no sea unexplored, and a navy which takes
no law from superior force.
Resolved, That appointments by the President to offices in the
Territories should be made from the bona fide citizens and residents
of the Territories wherein they are to serve.
Resolved, That it is the duty of Congress to enact such laws as shall
promptly and effectually suppress the system of polygamy within our
territory, and divorce the political from the ecclesiastical power of
the so-called Mormon Church, and that the law so enacted should be
rigidly enforced by the civil authorities if possible, and by the
military if need be.
The people of the United States, in their organized capacity,
constitute a Nation and not a mere confederacy of States. The
National Government is supreme within the sphere of its national
duty, but the States have reserved rights which should be faithfully
maintained; each should be guarded with jealous care, so that the
harmony of our system of government may be preserved and the
Union be kept inviolate. The perpetuity of our institutions rests upon
the maintenance of a free ballot, an honest count, and correct
returns.
 We denounce the fraud and violence practised by the Democracy
in Southern States by which the will of the voter is defeated, as
dangerous to the preservation of free institutions, and we solemnly
arraign the Democratic party as being the guilty recipient of the
fruits of such fraud and violence. We extend to the Republicans of
the South, regardless of their former party affiliations, our cordial
sympathy, and pledge to them our most earnest efforts to promote
the passage of such legislation as will secure to every citizen, of
whatever race and color, the full and complete recognition,
possession and exercise of all civil and political rights.

1888.—Democratic National Platform.

Adopted by the St. Louis Convention, June 5, 1888.

The Democratic party of the United States, in National Convention
assembled, renews the pledge of its fidelity to Democratic faith, and
reaffirms the platform adopted by its representatives in the
Convention of 1884, and endorses the views expressed by President
Cleveland in his last annual message to Congress as the correct
interpretation of that platform upon the question of tariff reduction;
and also endorses the efforts of our Democratic representatives in
Congress to secure a reduction of excessive taxation. Chief among its
principles of party faith are the maintenance of an indissoluble union
of free and indestructible States, now about to enter upon its second
century of unexampled progress and renown; devotion to a plan of
government regulated by a written constitution strictly specifying
every granted power and expressly reserving to the States or people
the entire ungranted residue of power; the encouragement of a
jealous popular vigilance, directed to all who have been chosen for
brief terms to enact and execute the laws, and are charged with the
duty of preserving peace, ensuring equality and establishing justice.
The Democratic party welcome an exacting scrutiny of the
administration of the executive power which, four years ago, was
committed to its trusts in the election of Grover Cleveland, President
of the United States, but it challenges the most searching inquiry
concerning its fidelity and devotion to the pledges which then invited
the suffrages of the people. During a most critical period or our
financial affairs, resulting from over taxation, the anomalous
condition of our currency and a public debt unmatured, it has, by the
adoption of a wise and conservative course, not only averted a
disaster, but greatly promoted the prosperity of our people.
It has reversed the improvident and unwise policy of the
Republican party touching the public domain, and has reclaimed
from corporations and syndicates alien and domestic and restored to
the people nearly one hundred million acres of valuable land, to be
sacredly held as homesteads for our citizens.
While carefully guarding the interest to the principles of justice
and equity, it has paid out more for pensions and bounties to the
soldiers and sailors of the Republic than was ever paid out during an
equal period. It has adopted and constantly pursued a firm and
prudent foreign policy, preserving peace with all nations while
scrupulously maintaining all the rights and interests of our own
Government and people at home and abroad. The exclusion from our
shores of Chinese laborers has been effectually secured under the
provision of a treaty, the operation of which has been postponed by
the action of a Republican majority in the Senate.
Honest reform in the Civil Service has been inaugurated and
maintained by President Cleveland, and he has brought the public
service to the highest standard of efficiency, not only by rule and
precept, but by the example of his own untiring and unselfish
administration of public affairs.
In every department and branch of the Government, under
Democratic control, the rights and the welfare of all the people have
been guarded and defended; every public interest has been
protected, and the equality of all our citizens before the law without
regard to race or color has been steadfastly maintained. Upon its
record thus exhibited, and upon the pledge of a continuance to the
people of the benefits of Democracy, invokes a renewal of popular
trust by the re-election of a Chief Magistrate who has been faithful,
able and prudent. To invoke in addition to that trust by the transfer
also to the Democracy of the entire legislative power.
The Republican party controlling the Senate and resisting in both
Houses of Congress a reformation of unjust and unequal tax laws,
which have outlasted the necessities of war and are now
undermining the abundance of a long peace, deny to the people
equality before the law, and the fairness and the justice which are
their right. Then the cry of American labor for a better share in the
rewards of industry is stifled with false pretences, enterprise is
fettered and bound down to home markets, capital is discouraged
with doubt, and unequal, unjust laws can neither be properly
amended nor repealed.
The Democratic party will continue with all the power confided to
it, the struggle to reform these laws in accordance with the pledges of
its last platform, endorsed at the ballot-box by the suffrages of the
people. Of all the industrious freemen of our land, the immense
majority, including every tiller of the soil, gain no advantage from
excessive tax laws, but the price of nearly everything they buy is
increased by the favoritism of an unequal system of tax legislation.
All unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation.
It is repugnant to the creed of Democracy that by such taxation the
cost of the necessaries of life should be unjustifiably increased to all
our people. Judged by Democratic principles the interests of the
people are betrayed when, by unnecessary taxation, trusts and
combinations are permitted to exist, which, while unduly enriching
the few that combine, rob the body of the citizens by depriving them
of the benefits of natural competition. Every Democratic rule of
governmental action is violated when, through unnecessary taxation,
a vast sum of money, far beyond the needs of an economical
administration, is drawn from the people and the channels of trade
and accumulated as a demoralizing surplus in the National Treasury.
The money now lying idle in the Federal Treasury, resulting from
superfluous taxation, amounts to more than one hundred and
twenty-five millions, and the surplus collected is reaching the sum of
more than sixty millions annually. Debauched by this immense
temptation, the remedy of the Republican party is to meet and
exhaust by extravagant appropriations and expenses, whether
constitutional or not, the accumulation of extravagant taxations. The
Democratic policy is to enforce frugality in public expense and
abolish unnecessary taxation. Our established domestic industries
and enterprises should not and need not be endangered by the
reduction and correction of the burdens of taxation. On the contrary,
a fair and careful revision of our tax laws, with due allowance for the
difference between the wages of American and foreign labor, must
promote and encourage every branch of such industries and
enterprises by giving them assurance of an extended market and
steady and continuous operations. In the interests of American labor,
which should in no event be neglected, revision of our tax laws,
contemplated by the Democratic party, should promote the
advantage of such labor by cheapening the cost of necessaries of life
in the home of every working man, and at the same time securing to
him steady and remunerative employment. Upon this question of
tariff reform, so closely concerning every phase of our national life,
and upon every question involved in the problem of good
government, the Democratic party submits its principles and
professions to the intelligent suffrages of the American people.
Resolved, That this Convention hereby endorses and recommends
the early passage of the bill for the reduction of the revenue now
pending in the House of Representatives. (Referring to the Mills bill.)
Resolved, That we express our cordial sympathy with the
struggling people of all nations in their efforts to secure for
themselves the inestimable blessings of self-government and civil
and religious liberty; and we especially declare our sympathy with
the efforts of those noble patriots who, led by Gladstone and Parnell,
have conducted their grand and peaceful contest for Home Rule in
Ireland.

The Republican National Platform,

Adopted at Chicago Convention, June 19, 1888.

The Republicans of the United States, assembled by their delegates
in National Convention, pause on the threshold of their proceedings
to honor the memory of their first great leader, the immortal
champion of liberty and the rights of the people—Abraham Lincoln—
and to cover also with wreaths of imperishable remembrance and
gratitude the heroic names of our later leaders who have more
recently been called away from our councils—Grant, Garfield,
Arthur, Logan, Conkling. May their memories be faithfully cherished.
We also recall with our greetings, and with prayer for his recovery,
the name of one of our living heroes whose memory will be treasured