tleman, and he adds, moreover, an accomplished skill in the management of difficult negotiations, that require courage and magnanimity, tempered by judgment and tact. General Scott is the favorite of the army: our returned officers constantly echo his praises. His popularity was very great, and his friends supposed that he was the best candidate. But it did not prove so. Out of all the votes given at the Convention, he received about a fourth. The body of these votes were from the West. The choice lay now between Mr. Clay and General Taylor-between the commander and the statesman. Both of these had passed their lives in the service of their country: one in the field, defending our frontiers against the incursions of the Indian tribes, and latterly, in carrying on a war of fearful danger, and against the greatest odds, in Mexico; the other in a battle of opinion, equally arduous and important sustaining the cause of liberty and nationality, as it was sustained by Jefferson and Madison, those grand patrons and founders of our institutions. In the Messages of President Jefferson you will find expressed, in great part, that protective and beneficent policy of which Mr. Clay is the distinguished advocate. the Whig side, and for the support of Whig principles, and yet such is their affection. for Mr. Clay, they would sooner ruin their party, (which they are now striving to do,) and even with that, ruin the vast interests of commerce and manufactures, nay, ruin themselves even and their private fortunes, than not vote for Mr. Clay. This was the object of the present meeting. These citizens, who are among the best Whigs in the Union, were assembled here to defeat themselves, for the love they bear to Mr. Clay. You may judge from that circumstance, what must be the power and personal influence of the man. He is the minority candidate of the party. It is necessary for the success of the party that the minority candidate should be given up, and that all votes should be united on the other candidate; but sooner than do this, the friends of Mr. Clay have resolved to throw their votes into the sea. But is it Str. Sir, you astonish me. not supposed that Mr. Clay has himself instigated this movement? Cit. That is impossible. He has refused the use of his name to any faction. The honor of the party is his own honor. Str. Why should he do that? If he thinks himself entitled to the Presidency as the reward of his long service Cit. You mistake. Men are not call Each of these great men represents a phase of the heroic character; their qual-ed to the Presidency in the acceptance ities are heroic, and yet contrasted. Each is admirable, but they affect us differently according to our predispositions. The generous pride and lofty pre-eminence of Mr. Clay's character; his aristocratic bearing, his haughty eye, and his irresistible grace, both of manners and of speech, show him one of nature's noblemen, a man born to lead and to command. His instinct of character, which is perfect and instantaneous, places him at once in a relation of friendship or enmity with those who come into personal contact with him. His enemies are constant and sincere: his friends are enthusiastic and devoted; their attention is drawn toward him with such intensity, because of his wonderful qualities, they soon forget everything in the man, and too easily lose sight in him of the principles and interests which he advocates. The crowd of citizens whom you saw assembled in this room just now, are most part ardent politicians, strongly engaged on of a reward, but in the performance of a duty. Mr. Clay has no such contemptible opinion of his country's offices as to claim them as one would a salary. As they are honors, they must be freely given, but not demanded as they are duties, they must be entered upon with anxiety and reluctance, not seized as a perquisite. None know better the true spirit in which to regard these things, than the minority candidate; he has said "that he would rather be right than be President," meaning, perhaps, that as the most desirable of all things, in point of credit, is to be right, the next is, to have one's merit recognized by some great testimony, as by an appointment to the Presidency. Str. It strikes me now that his friends' opinion of him was not commensurate with his greatness, or their honor, that they should make a movement by which he was invited to defeat his own party. Cit. Ah! sir, he is too good a patriot Cit. Never concern yourself. He is not bound to be keeping a hospital for insane politicians. Let it pass. The shame for that, and too great a mind to give in | disgracing themselves and their venerated to any littleness. Mr. Clay's honor, as leader, by making him the puppet of a one of the candidates of the Convention, faction! would have been sorely compromised should he have yielded an instant to their suggestions. When the name When the name of General Taylor was offered at the Convention, the principal objection raised against it, and which, while it remained, was insuperable, was that he did not freely commit himself into the hands of the Convention; but it was thought, that if rejected by them, he would allow himself to be made an independent candidate, and by that course divide the party, and defeat the election. This objection, urged with great vehemence by the friends of Mr. Clay and others, was removed by General Taylor's explicit committal to the Convention; he would be theirs wholly, to do with as they pleased. Of course, if one of the candidates for nomination was thus bound, all were bound; but our discontented enthusiasts here, seem to have forgotten that point, if indeed they ever took it into consideration. Should it be agreed by one half the Whig party, to set up Mr. Clay, he would not allow himself to be made their candidate; neither would Mr. Webster, nor General Scott. All votes given for these gentlemen are thrown into the sea, and go so far to elect the adversary. Str. Do you mean the "adversary of souls ?" Cit. No, sir; the adversary of peace. To continue. General Taylor will draw after him a number of democratic votes. Democratic committees have offered him, unconditionally, the votes of their caucuses, and he has very properly accepted them. The vote of a Democrat is as good, or better, to elect a Whig President than the vote of a Whig. And this, too, was known to the Convention, and it had great weight in procuring the nomination of the General; for when a man is popular with both parties, and is a firm adherent of one, other things being as they should be, he is the candidate, the expediency candidate, as the new phrase has it. You cannot choose but take such a one; to do otherwise were a proof of more enthusiasm than discretion. Str. I cannot leave meditating the indiscretion of those mistaken citizens! That they should have deliberately gone about of it is enough, and will last long enough. But we may learn some good lessons from the folly, and so at least give it value as a part of history. Conventions are but just beginning to be understood. They are an essential part of our system. We cannot dispense with them. But we must learn to organize them properly, to conduct them fairly, and finally to acquiesce in their decisions. To violate the faith of a Convention should be regarded as a kind of minor treason, and such politicians as fail of their just and honorable adherence should suffer a political death; should be read out of our books, or be set down as mercenaries. Why, if the party is established for the country's good, is it not contrary to manhood and to virtue, to divide, corrupt, or deceive it? A great deal is urged by these discontents about principles-about adhering to our principles. We had better never be in power, say these astute moralists, than sacrifice a single principle. Very good, very heroical, is that saying. But unless we at some time acquire power to carry out our principles, they are almost a dead letter. I know, indeed, that a vigorous minority, with right on their side, may bring the country to their mind, and with public opinion to aid them, may effectually obstruct and even change the policy of a corrupt administration; but in doing this, they have not done all. If the Whigs are never to be in office, they will by-and-by cease to exist as a party. Nor are they to insist with a childish pertinacity that their candidate shall give in to all and every point of policy that was ever entertained by a Whig. If their candidate is sound at heart, and on difficult questions defers to the opinion of the majority, what more can they ask of him? To ask more were the height of folly-it were even an indecency, and a kind of tempting of Providence, who will surely visit such exacting electors with a DEMAGOGUE. What Whig will deny the name of Whig to any elector because he does not think well of prohibitory duties, or of a national bank? On these questions men exercise a latitude of opinion; but if any man advocates a conquest policy, or acquiesces in the unrestrained use of the veto, or holds the doctrine of laisser faire, let alone, denying government all power to protect or extend trade, or to engage in works of national benefit, for the aid of commerce, agriculture, or manufactures,-why, then, we deny that he is a Whig-he is a Democrat of the bigot school, in a mischievous sense conservative. uncon But it is proper, perhaps, that I should put you on your guard against a very common error, an error, too, of great magnitude, and of the most injurious effect. It is growing more to be the opinion of our citizens, that the success of their policy depends upon the election of such or such a person to the Presidency. Under democratic rule, the President exercises a twofold legislative power. Under Whig rule he is not supposed to exercise any such power. An ultra-democratic President regards the veto-power as ditionally his, to be used at his good pleasure, for his own or for his party's benefit. He assumes a truly legislative position. Moreover, he thinks it politic to use as much personal influence, by giving and withholding of patronage, by the promise of aid, and by pledging himself to such or such a line of policy; and still more, by a means not rightly understood as yet by the people, the power of destroying the political character of any weak member of Congress, or any aspirant to office, by corresponding with his constituents, or through newspapers in the employment of the party-a vast and potent means of influence: I say he thinks it politic to employ all these means to control elections, and create a ministerial majority in Congress, to carry out any measure of government that may seem good to himself and his friends. He will demand of his officials to be active on the eve of an election, in the support of some nameless adventurer, who has wriggled himself into favor at Washington. Str. Stop a moment, if you please; do you mean to say that office is obtained in this free nation by intrigue, the intervention of women, bribing, and button-hold ing? Cit. To my sorrow, I do, sir. You must know that we have peculiar and very numerous class of citizens in this country, who go by the name of officeseekers. These unfortunate persons are visited for their sins with a peculiar longing--the longing for office, if it be the most miserable starveling function in the world, still, if it be an office under government, they long. A more singular and uncomfortable malady than this is not to be found noted in the books. It can be compared with none but that dirt-dispepsia which afflicts the negroes of the West Indies, when they long to eat dust and earth, and will even sweep the floor in order to devour the sweepings. The officedispepsia sometimes seizes upon men at middle age in the full vigor of health, and they will even throw up a good business, sell a farm, pawn their mortgages, and hypothecate their stocks, to scrape money to spend in the hotels of Washington, soliciting the miserable boon of a clerk's place, with a salary of six hundred a-year. Such instances are not rare. Sir, I am afraid you will not believe me when I tell you, that for every one of the hundred thousand persons in the pay of government, there are probably five or six who are sick of this odious malady. Thus you have at least half a million of men, and an innumerable multitude of their sympathizing friends, reduced to a condition of moral atrophy, their free-wills extinguished in that of their monstertyrant the government. Now, on the eve of a democratic election, this vast body is converted for the most part into an electioneering army: they persuade and draw over the neutrals, and so turn the scale. As a remark, by-theby, let me suggest, then, if the Whigs, who have been long out of power, should gain the next election by a bare majority, their real numbers must be enormous and embrace two-thirds of the nation at least; seeing that their adversaries, with the aid of this electioneering army, and all other means to boot, could not outvote them. But I grow tedious. Str. O no; your account is painful but not tedious. Cit. Now it is a part of good policy that this dreadful endemic of office-seeking, which not only corrupts our government, but creates the greatest unhappiness and discontent, should be abated—at least, that the government itself should cease to be the patron and promoter of it for the evil purposes of faction. To this end all that is necessary, is that our President should, in the first place, make all promotions in the army and navy in the regular order of the service, not allowing himself to be affected by private influence, or personal power, and that for the officers of government he should choose such men as are known to be valuable and honest; and for local offices, such as those of the Post Office and the Revenue, that he should not bestow them merely as rewards for party service, but should, as far as possible, choose such men as are acceptable to the people of the places where they are, and would be chosen by them were they to be elected by vote. And, lastly, he is not to displace a valuable officer merely because he voted against the party of the President. A busy, noisy demagogue, who neglects his official duties, and passes his whole time in clubs and caucusses, cannot indeed expect to remain in office when there is a better man and a more useful one to fill his place; there are limits beyond which endurance will not carry us-but I think the principle is by this time quite clear to you. Str. Yes; but it seems to me a very serious defect in your government, that the appointment to valuable local offices should be in the hands of the President. Why not make them elective? Čit. There are arguments on both sides. The Constitution provides that Congress shall have power to make the minor offices elective if it pleases, but at present they are by appointment. Touching the question of appointments and removals, our candidate has this grand qualification, that having no party obligations, nor private enmities, he will allow good officers to retain their places, and only expel such as are notoriously intriguing, incapable or corrupt; and there is good reason to believe that he will always prefer such men as are acceptable to the people, and such as will not tamper with public opinion, or labor to corrupt the elections. Str. But if it is power that the Whigs want, why should they not use every means to increase their power? Cit. The power which they want is the free unbiassed favor of the nation, not the interested love of dependants. The Whigs are fully aware that the weight of national feeling and opinion is on their side; they wish only for a free expression of that opinion. And this we believe will be allowed them if General Taylor and his friends come into power. Str. Sir, I am amazed at the expres sions which you use "allowed them." Why, sir, are not the people free? Cit. Not under the so-called "Democratic rule." Under that rule the majority does not govern. For, under that rule, the President is endowed with a legislative as well as an executive power. He dictates to Congress; he dictates to his officials and their friends; he dictates to the party; and through all this dictation he is the dictator of the nation, and not its constitutional Executive. If the President and his friends wish to have supplies for a war, which they mean to engage in, with England, or with Mexico, or any other country-for the acquisition of remote gold mines, or ports of commerce-they can so influence Congress, and so influence the elections, and so threaten, terrify, and suppress the free opinion of the best men of their own party, as to obtain such supplies. They can put the machinery of the press in motion, to manufacture public opinion over all the continent, and even in Europe, to carry out their pernicious schemes. And if all this fails, and the President and his friends find themselves in a minority in Congress, then steps in the veto power, and by holding it in terror over every measure of public benefit or private claim-in short, sir, the Executive power, with army, navy, offices, newspapers, party, Congress, and the purse at command, can do just what it likes. You see, then, our only hope is TO ELECT an honest man. It is power, sir, that we want, not the power to govern and meddle, but the power to let alone and forbear. We begin to think well of that favorite maxim of our Democratic friends, that "the world"-this country at least "is governed too much." True, indeed, what with our botched up tariffs, ruining the manufacturing interest, and turning, by that means, the balance of trade against sincerity and consistency. In fact, sir, I entertain too great a respect for him to attempt to defend him. Str. But what is this satirical cry that I hear raised against an expediency candidate? Cit. You are, perhaps, well enough acquainted with our language to know that the word expediency signifies "fitness or suitableness to the purpose intended;" or, sometimes, " "propriety under the peculiar circumstances of the case:" these are the definitions of expediency. us; what with our borrowings to sustain a vicious war; what with a treasury system contrived so as to create powerful centres of Executive influence in various parts of the country; what with the want of any national system of exchanges, so that the losses by exchange, and the want of a regulative treasury center, exceed all other causes of loss combined, in commercial operations; what with the new Democratic movement in the North, by which the Northern Democracy means, by and by, to regulate the private affairs of our Southern States, What is expedient to an end is right, and also to regulate the private affairs of provided the end be right. The end does Cuba, Jamaica and Mexico; what with not indeed sanctify the means; for if all this "governing," and longings to gov- we see bad means, or bad, false and ern our neighbors and our fellow-citizens, I wicked men employed, toward the acdo think we and our neighbors are "gov-complishment of any public design, acterned too much;" and, more, that it is high time for honest and capable men to step in and put an end to this vicious, and all too rapid increase of the governing power. It is time, sir, that Congress and the majority of the nation should begin and try what they can do in their lawful capacity. When the Whigs are in power, they will carry out their principles, but now their duty is, to use every honest means to bring their own men into Congress, and into the national offices. But this desirable end cannot be attained by roaring, or by creating divisions, or by putting astute queries, with a jockey's wink of the eye, "Whether Gen. Taylor be a Whig or no?"-it were better if such would inquire of their own selves, whether they know the meaning of the word "Whig," and how far they are sincere in their own professions of Whiggism? If they believe not that Gen. Taylor is a Whig after all the evidence that has been given them, they are, indeed, in a state of incapacity, and should put their faith in training to enable it to carry something solid. There are those whose experience has lain so much amongst knaves and simpletons, their beliefs are deranged and shrivelled for want of testimony. With these we need not parley. A man's sincerity and soundness is evident on his face, and in his life and speech. Our candidate carries sincerity, sweetness, and manly courage in his countenance, and as his life has been an unbroken line of wisdom and heroism, so his speech is a perfect whole of modesty, ing in their real character of demagogues would be the last to resort to base and What we seek in a candidate is, first, a great character; second, experience and wisdom in command; and, lastly, a national reputation. Now, if the first mark of a great character is the ability of controlling, combining, and directing the energies of other men, toward some one grand purpose; as when the general so employs and directs the energies and talents of his officers as to win the field; who discovers more of this quality than our candidate? His influence over his troops, by example of indifference to dangers, fills them with a calm and heroic courage; his wisdom in guiding their valor and combining their movements, insures |