Without undertaking to apply this language in all its force to either of the parties convened at Baltimore or Philadelphia, it will be sufficient to say that they do not now embody, if they ever did, those principles which are accepted by large numbers of good men as vital and paramount. The question, then, arises, Shall these principles continue without any national organ? Shall they find no voice? Shall they be stifled? Clearly not.
Such precisely is our condition. The important sentiment of hostility to the Slave Power, to the extension of Slavery, and to its longer continuance under the Constitution wherever the National Government is responsible for it, though recognized by individuals, and by a small, but respectable, political organization, was never till now put forth as the paramount principle of a large and national party. It is true, indeed, that here is no new idea. It is as old as the Revolution,—as old as Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin; but it is an idea neglected by both the great parties which have recently swayed the country. Were it recognized by either, there would be no occasion for the new party whose existence has so auspiciously begun.
No person is so hardy as to assert that the present Democratic party embodies this idea. But there are partisans, who, in disregard of well-known facts, claim it as the property of the late Whig party, even in its present metamorphosis into the Taylor faction. It is sometimes proclaimed as their "thunder." How is this?
It is well known that the Whigs of Massachusetts, in local conventions, and also in formal legislative proceedings, have avowed hostility to the Slave Power, to the extension of Slavery, and to its longer continuance under the Constitution, wherever the National Government is responsible for it; but the National Whig party, or what Mr. Webster has called "the united Whig party of the United States," has never recognized any such principles. Search its history, and you will find that it has been false to them.
As a party, it has never sustained any measure for the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia. On the contrary, it has discountenanced all proceedings in this direction. General Harrison, the only President it has succeeded in electing, covertly took ground against it in his Inaugural Message, and Mr. Clay, the acknowledged representative of the party, expressed himself to the same effect, with a warmth which better became a better cause. Nor did either of these Whig statesmen admit, what Mr. Van Buren more than once distinctly declared, that Congress possessed the constitutional power to abolish Slavery in the District. That part of our principles, then, which touches this topic, has formed no portion of the National Whig doctrines.
The claim to proprietorship in the principle of opposition to the extension of Slavery is equally vain. Florida and Arkansas have both been admitted as States with slaveholding Constitutions, and the National Whig party made no opposition.
The annexation of Texas, when first presented, was opposed by many Whigs of the Slave States, but on grounds irrespective of Slavery. It was finally consummated through the agency of John Tyler, President by the act of the Whig party, and of John C. Calhoun, Secretary of State by the unanimous vote of the Whig and Democratic members of the Senate, through joint resolutions, moved in the House by Mr. Milton Brown, a Slaveholding Whig from Tennessee, and in the Senate by Mr. Foster, a Slaveholding Whig from the same State. Thus even against the annexation of Texas the Whig party did not present a constant and uniform front.
The question of the extension of Slavery was distinctly presented, on the application of Texas for admission into our Union, with a Constitution which not only established Slavery, but took from the Legislature all power to abolish it. The spirit of New England was aroused. Remonstrances went up to Congress on the single ground of opposition to the extension of Slavery. John Quincy Adams undertook to present them. But, notwithstanding his earnest efforts, the measure was hurried through the House by the vote of every slaveholder present, Whig and Democrat. It went to the Senate, where it was ushered under the sanction in part of Mr. Berrien, a slaveholding Whig from Georgia, and finally triumphed in that body, notwithstanding the opposition of Mr. Webster, by the vote of every slaveholder present, Whig and Democrat. Let it be mentioned to their credit, that Mr. Thomas Clayton, of the Senate, and Mr. John W. Houston, of the House, from Delaware, and Mr. John G. Chapman, of the House, from Maryland, united with the friends of Freedom; but I understand that they are not slaveholders. The associations of the day on which this deed was done added to its character as a mockery of Human Rights. It was on the 22d of December, 1845, the anniversary of the landing at Plymouth Rock.
At a later day this great question again entered Congress, overshadowing all others. In 1846, Mr. Wilmot, a Democrat, of Pennsylvania, in order to secure the Territories for Freedom, moved his Proviso, borrowed from the Ordinance of 1787. The motion was sustained by Northern Whigs, but opposed by slaveholders without distinction of party. Exertions were made to rally the Free States on this ground; but the National Whig party, anxious to avoid the issue, strove, through the agency of Mr. Berrien and Mr. Webster, to substitute the question of No more Territory,—thus avoiding the issue upon the paramount principle, now vaunted as theirs, of opposition to the extension of Slavery.
At the Whig Convention in Philadelphia two different efforts were made to obtain the recognition of this principle; but it was laid upon the table, or stifled amidst unseemly noises and cries of "Kick it out!"