in rural districts, Stevenson balanced the ticket headed by Cleveland, a hard-money, gold-standard supporter. Source: US Vice President - D Convention. Our Campaigns. (September 7, 2009). Platform The 1892 convention adopted a platform: endorsing "a return to [Jeffersonian and Madisonian] fundamental principles of free popular government, based on home rule and individual liberty" opposing "Federal control of elections, to which the Republican party has committed itself" opposing "the Republican policy of profligate expenditure" denouncing "Republican protection as fraud" and declaring it "a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that the Federal Government has no constitutional power to impose and collect tariff duties, except for the purpose of revenue only" denouncing the McKinley Tariff as "the culminating atrocity of class legislation" and endorsing ongoing efforts to modify or repeal it denouncing the tariff's effect on agricultural surplus and mortgage rates in the West denouncing "the sham reciprocity" which "pretend[s] to establish closer trade relations for a country whose articles of export are almost exclusively agricultural products with other countries that are also agricultural, while erecting a custom=house barrier of prohibitive tariff taxes against the richest countries of the world that stand ready to take our entire surplus of products, and to exchange therefor commodities which are necessaries and comforts of life among our own people" demanding enforcement of the laws made to prevent and control "the Trusts and Combinations, which are designed to enable capital to secure more than its just share of the joint product of Capital and Labor, a natural consequence of the prohibitive taxes" and further legislation "in restraint of their abuses as experience may show to be necessary" reaffirming the 1876 declaration in favor of "reform of the civil service" and denouncing the recent Republican convention as "a scandalous satire upon free popular institutions and a startling illustration of the methods by which a President may gratify his ambition" in which Benjamin Harrison was re-nominated "by delegations composed largely of his appointees, holding office at his pleasure" pledging to continue the policy of reclaiming public lands "to be sacredly held as homesteads for our citizens" denouncing the Sherman Silver Purchase Act as "a cowardly makeshift" and holding in favor of: "the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country" "the coinage of both gold and silver without discriminating against either metal or charge for mintage, but the dollar unit of coinage of