Presidential Candidates: / Containing Sketches, Biographical, Personal and Political, of Prominent Candidates for the Presidency in 1860

by D. W. Bartlett

Now for Mr. Bates' political opinions—and we shall quote from his late letter. He says, speaking of slavery:

"As to the negro question, I have always thought, and often declared, in speech and in print, that it is a pestilent question, the agitation of which has never done good to any party, section, or class, and never can do good, unless it be accounted good to stir up the angry passions of men, and exasperate the unreasoning jealousies of sections, and by these bad means foist some unfit men into office, and keep some fit men out. It is a sensitive question, into whose dangerous vortex it is quite possible for good men to be drawn unawares. But when I see a man, at the South or the North, of mature age and some experience, persist in urging the question, after the successful experience of the last few years, I can attribute his conduct to no higher motive than personal ambition or sectional prejudice."

This is all Mr. Bates says on the slavery question. He then goes on to speak in favor of internal improvements to advance the interests and protect the rights and industry of the country.

"Protection, if not the sole, is the chief end of government. It is for the governing power to judge, in every instance, what kind and what degree of protection is needful—whether a navy to guard our commerce all around the world, or an army to defend the country against armed invasion from without, or domestic insurrection from within; or a tariff to protect our home industry against the dangerous obtrusion of foreign labor and capital."

As to our foreign policy generally, he says he is willing to leave it where Washington placed it, on the sage maxim, "Peace with all nations; entangling alliances with none." The greedy appetite for foreign acquisition which makes us covet our neighbor's lands, and devise cunning schemes to get them, has little of his sympathy. He argues this point briefly, but forcibly, opposing the acquisition of Cuba, and the other islands and Central American countries which would then be demanded. As to buying them, we had better wait till we cease borrowing money to pay current expenses; and before conquering, pause and estimate the cost of rushing into war with all maritime Europe, and half of America. Cuba has much more to fear from us than we have to fear from Cuba. Mr. Bates continues:

"But suppose we could get, honestly and peaceably, the whole country, continental and insular, from the Rio Grande to the Orinoco, and from Trinidad to Cuba, and thus establish our mare clausum, and shut the gate of the world across the Isthmus, can we govern them wisely and well? For the last few years, in the attempt to govern our home territories of Kansas and Utah, we have not very well maintained the dignity and justice of the nation, nor secured the peace and prosperity of the subject people....

"For my part, I should grieve to have my country become, like Rome, a conquering and dominant nation; for I think there are few or no examples in history, of governments whose chief objects were glory and power, which did ever secure the happiness and prosperity of their own people. Such governments may grow great and famous, and advance a few of their citizens to wealth and nobility, but the price of their grandeur is the personal independence and individual freedom of their people. Still less am I inclined to see absorbed into our system, "on an equal footing with the original States," the various and mixed races (amounting to I know not how many millions) which inhabit the continent and isthmus south of our present border. I am not willing to inoculate our body politic with the virus of their diseases, political and social—diseases which, with them, are chronic and hereditary, and with us could hardly fail to produce corruption in the mind and weakness in the members."

The letter concludes as follows:

"It seems to me that an efficient, home-loving government, moderate and economical in its administration, peaceful in its objects, and just to all nations, need have no fear of invasion at home, or serious aggressions abroad. The nations of Europe have to stand continually in defence of their existence, but the conquest of our country by a foreign power is simply impossible, and no nation is so absurd as to entertain the thought. We may conquer ourselves by local strifes and sectional animosities, and when, by our folly and wickedness, we have accomplished that great calamity, there will be none to pity us for the consequences of so great a crime.

"If our government would devote all its energies to the promotion of peace and friendship with all foreign countries; the advancement of commerce; the increase of agriculture; the growth and stability of manufactures, and the cheapening, quickening, and securing the internal trade and travel of our country; in short, if it would devote itself in earnest to the establishment of a wise and steady policy of internal government, I think we should witness a growth and consolidation of wealth and comfort, and power for good, which cannot be reasonably hoped for from a fluctuating policy, always watching for the turns of good fortune, or from a grasping ambition to seize new territories, which are hard to get and harder to govern.