This same Convention nominated for the Presidency General Taylor, who is justly supposed, by his position, to be against the Wilmot Proviso, and who has been advocated recently by Mr. Berrien, a leading slaveholding Whig, remarkable for hostility to the Proviso, on the ground, thus candidly expressed, that "the Southern man who is farthest from us is nearer to us than any Northern man can be,—that General Taylor is identified with us in feeling and interest, was born and educated in a slaveholding State, is himself a slaveholder,—that his slave property constitutes the means of support to himself and family,—that he cannot desert us, without sacrificing his interest, his principles, the habits and feelings of his life,—and that with him, therefore, our institutions are safe." In sustaining such a candidate, while professing to be a Free-Soil party, the Whigs imitate those barbarians who elevate in their temple a Pagan idol, while professing to serve, in Gospel light, the only true God.
There are leading supporters of General Taylor, not slaveholders, but acknowledged Whigs, who frankly disclaim the Wilmot Proviso. Mr. Clayton, of Delaware, is reported as declaring to the Senate, July 5, 1848,—"No man has a right to say that the Wilmot Proviso is a Whig principle, or that its opposite is a Whig principle. We repudiate the question altogether, as a political question. Neither the one side nor the other of the question forms any part of our platform." And my friend Mr. Choate, the accomplished orator, is reported as saying, in one of his recent speeches: "On all the great questions of the day BUT JUST SLAVERY, we mean to remain the same party of Whigs, one and indivisible, from Maine to Louisiana; upon this question alone we always differ from the Whigs of the South, and on that one we propose simply to vote them down."
I conclude, then, that the principle of opposition to the extension of Slavery, like that of opposition to its longer continuance under the Constitution, wherever the National Government is responsible for it, is not recognized by the national political combination which supports General Taylor. None will say that this combination will oppose the Slave Power, of which their candidate is a component part.
It is to uphold and advance these principles, thus neglected by others, that we have come together, leaving the parties to which we have been respectively attached. Now, in the course of human events, it has become our duty to dissolve the political bands which have hitherto bound us to the old organizations, and to assume a separate existence. Our Declaration of Independence was put forth at Buffalo. Let us, in the spirit of the fathers, pledge ourselves to sustain it with lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. Our cause is holier than theirs, inasmuch as it is nobler to struggle for the freedom of others than for our own. Full of reverence for the fathers, I here repeat what in this contest cannot be too often declared. The love of Right, which is the animating principle of our movement, is higher than the love of Freedom. But both Right and Freedom inspire our cause.
Taking our place as a new party, we fulfil the desires of many good men, living and dead, who have longed to see the thraldom of the old organizations broken. Such was the earnest hope of John Quincy Adams, expressed more than once. "God grant that it may come!" was his devout wish.
Another person, not a politician, whose opinions exercise a wide influence over the present generation, the late William Ellery Channing, has left on record a similar aspiration. In a letter dated January 11, 1840, recently published in his biography, he says: "The Whig interest seems to be too strong to be put down at once. This party has the wealth, and in so rich a State [Massachusetts] has great advantages for perpetuating its power. No party, however, which thinks only of securing wealth can last long. There must be some higher principle."[274] And in another letter, dated March 1, 1842, the same patriot and philanthropist says: "The political state of the country is exceedingly perplexed. The Whig party has little unity, and is threatened with dissolution.... Would the Democrats break up too, and could we start afresh, the Government would probably be less of an evil than it is."[275]
Another eminent person, honored wherever the pulpit and philosophy of our country are known, Rev. Francis Wayland, of the Baptist denomination, has recently put forth sentiments in a similar strain. "But," says he, "it may be said that a course of conduct like this would destroy all political organizations, and render nugatory the designations in which we have for so very long prided ourselves. If this be all the mischief that is done, the Republic, I think, may very patiently endure it.... If a disciple of Christ has learned to value his political party more highly than he does truth and justice and mercy, it is surely time that his connection with it were broken off. Let him learn to surrender party for moral principle.... Let all good men do this, and they will form a party by themselves, a party acting in the fear of God, and sustained by the arm of Omnipotence....
"Let virtuous men, then, unite on the ground of universal moral principle, and the tyranny of party will be crushed. Were the virtuous men of this country to carry their moral sentiments into practice, and act alone rather than participate in the doing of wrong, all parties would, from necessity, submit to their authority, and the acts of the nation would become a true exponent of the moral character of our people."[276]
I would add, that I am glad to adduce this high testimony from the pulpit. The Gospel is never more truly or sublimely preached than when the politician is told that he, too, is bound by its laws, and communities, whether villages, towns, states, or nations, are summoned, like individuals, to obey its sacred behests.
In such a spirit our organization has been established. It is sometimes said, that it does not recognize certain measures of public policy, deemed by certain persons of special importance. If this be so, it does what is better, and what other organizations fail to do: it acknowledges those high principles which, like the great central light, vivify all, and without which all is dark and sterile.