State of Parties and the Country [pp. 1-53]

State of Parties and the Country.
Parties are no more infallible than men, and no more can they
fall into lapses without incurring the usual penalties. Defeat
and overthrow await all those, in the end, who in any way palter
with their principles. In buying up, at such sacrifice, too, one
section, we are almost certain to lose another, and that one
which has held true alliance with us, an(l kept firm faith
from the beginning. We lose more. We lose our moral
strength; and, in imitation of the WhIigs, we forfeit permanent
power for the sake of the most wretched expedients.
For all practical purposes, as regards the Internal Imnprovement system, both parties have shown themselves corrupt. When Taylor was run by the Whig,,s, Cass was the
nominee of the Democrats-a man as strongly given to wild
appropriations to this object as Taylor could possibly be
and this in the face of our very resolutions, our articles of
faith, re-adopted in the moment of his nomination. We
cannot do these things and live. We cannot lie and hope to
escape justice. W'e must abide by our creed, and silnk or
swimne with it, or there is no help in us!
Meanwhile, at the very moment when we were repeating,
with stern intensity, our deadly antipathies to Government
Banklis, and American Systems, the question of Abolition
was rearing its Gorgon crest, and taking an aspect of direst
magnitude in the eyes of the country-a terror, threatening,
like the rod-serpent of Aaron, to swallow up all the other
serpents of faction. The public instincts naturally asked,
why dwell on the half-killed measures of Whiggism, and
turn an indifbferent eye upon this new enemy? The reason
was obvious. Party, no matter how grounded on principle
at first, seeks, after a while, nothing so much as the perpetuation of its own power; and, as we have said already, will
steadily evade and dodge all new issues which threaten to
disturb its securities. For as long as possible, it strove to
avoid this subject; to escape meeting the true question by
which the country was agitated and endange red —seeking to
restrict the attention of partisans wholly to old issues upon
which there could be little or no division in the ranks. In
both parties the Free Soilers had position; and the vulgar
and narrow policy of selfishness persuaded them rather to
1853.]
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