The Arkansas banner., 1843-10-21
-o'erlcaps itself And falls on t'other side i''

 ambition D that
 -o'ercaps itself
 And falls on tother side p
 On the 4th of December, 1889, some three hundred gentlemen assembled from all parts of the Union, ill high and solemn council, at Harrisburg, for the purpose of selecting the candidates of the great party of opposition in the ensuing Presidential contest, and of organizing the plan of the campaign which was to place them ill power, and to give them free range for the accomplishment of all the ulterior objects of public policy which they associated with the idea of change of ad- ministration. It cannot be denied that, in their selected and collective intelligence, they perfectly well understood their own case. Approaching the existing confusion i'll the relative position of parties and principles, and especially the heterogeneous character of that huge chaotic mass of population which they represented, they adopted as the leading idea of their whole scheme of ope- rations, that of withholding from the public any general statement of the principles con- stituting the platform on which they present. ed their candidates to the people for their sui fragcs. They deliberately abstained, on mo- ton of one of the most respectable mem bers of their body, from putting forth any such public address, as had always been the inyariable usage on such occasions The individual selected by them for the Presiden- ey was one who, whatever might be his oth- CT claims to popular favor, was so far from representing any complete and distinct set of principles, that lie could be quoted, and was quoted, with equal eafnestness in different sections of the Union, on the opposite sides ot several of the most important questions Of practical policy which at the time divided the public mind. Tine gentleman selected for the Niee-Presidency, with the contingent chance of succession 10 the chair of the chief Executive power itself, was identified, by the consistency of his entire public life, with principles diamotrically at variance with all the views of the great body of those by whom he was thus adopted, and of those by whom lie Was to be elected. Such was the ticket presented to the people-such the plan of the electoral campaign of which that ticket may be taken as the exponent.
 In it's first immediate object, this plan of eDerations-whieh we abstain fron, cI.:ss:se terlzing as 1t itdeserEes-Was successful. Ev- cry shade of opinion was mad welcome un- der the ample folds of the blank and unwrit- ten banner thus held aloft, for the rally of all the elements of discontent, necessarily gen eratasi by the possesson of power in the same hands through so long period as three successful Presidential terms. Every preju- dice was courted, every passion Gattered, that could tend to the one object toward which conyerged and centralized all the agencies thus set ill operation from every quarter, for the simple overthrow of one set of men from the seats of office. We need not, had we even the inclination, to recall the remem- brance of tine thousand means that were used, and piled to the utmost, to secure the i success of this scheme. For the sake of o;.11 pride Tn our country and its institutions, we would gladly obllterate, rather than aid to retlace, the recollection of events at which we blush, even more with shame for them, than with the indignation due to their all- i thors To our incredulous astonishment, ii was, we repeat, successful and the late ad- mlnlstration retired into minority from which we could not envy triumph thus achieved by our opponents.
 And what was It's first eflect9 Within a single month from it's complete consumma- ton, 1t brought oown III care and trouble to the grave, the gray hairs of the good old man, who, its chief tool, was its first victim. We have been accustomed to speak of the death of General Harrison as sudden and startlng visitation of Providence. It was so only in the sense in which the same expres- sion IS equally applicable to every other hu- llah event, however closely connected with the most obvious causes of human agency. So far as it may be lawful, in mortal affairs, to speculate upon the unknown what < might hare been," none will pretend to question that If, instead of being seized upon as he was, to be made the instrument of the great political fraud of that election-dragced to and fro, m the performance of its system of popular pageantry, with a subiection to de- gree Of fatigue, and inclemency of weather, and mental and nervous excitement, which might we'll have tasked the powers of endur- ance oi much younger and frmer consti- tutlon-and finally tormented and exhausted by the lnsatlate persecution of that herd of raFenng wolves, crowding almost around the very pillow which, since his arrival iii his palace of death, had yielded to him no repose, till he closed his eys upon it for the only calm and deep sleep he was ever again to be permitted to know-none, we repeat, will pretend to question that if, instead of this7 the unfortunate victim of it all had been left III the happy tranquility of his home and hls farm, he would to this day, in all human probability, have been in the enjoyment of that venerable old age, which should have protected him against the fata1 friendship of those who, while they made him their tool, destroyed 1t in the using.
 its first occupant thus sacrificed, Mir. Ty- Ter succeeded to the powers and duties of the office, for the first time in our history made vacant by the hand of death Congress assemblies The cardinal measure oi the whole system of policy which it was con vened, by its moving master-spirit, to set in operation-the Bank Bll-passes through both of its branches, and goes to the Execu-