How they should be overthrown he thus indicated: "There is but one way to restore the Government and the Constitution, and that is for the President to declare these Acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the South, dispossess the carpet-bag State governments, allow the white people to re-organize their own governments and elect senators and representatives." General Blair contended that this was "the real and only question," and that until this work was accomplished "it is idle to talk of bonds, greenbacks, the public faith, and the public credit." This letter, as will be noted, harmonized in thought and language with the plank which Wade Hampton had inserted in the platform, and its audacious tone commended its author to those who had been potential in committing the Convention to this extreme position.

General Preston of Kentucky, who had won his stars in the Confederate army, presented General Blair for Vice-President.

General Wade Hampton, distinguished in the same cause, seconded it, and the nomination was made of acclamation.
The Democratic party thus determined, through its platform and partially through its candidates, to fight its battle on the two issues of paying the debt in depreciated paper currency and overthrowing Reconstruction.

Other questions practically dropped out.

The whole discussion of the canvass turned on these two controlling propositions.
No violence of design which the Republicans imputed to their adversaries exceeded their open avowals.