The Whig standard. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1843-1844, 1844-03-15

the commission of a naval officer, will not the
slave population aspire to the same condition.
become DISCONTINUED in their situation, and seek
TO acquire those rights which their colored breh-
rem possess Do not free negroes intermingle
and associate with the slaves. Do they not inn
bbe the views, feelings, and passions of the slaves!
Are not their minds beclouded with ignorance,
and blinded with prejudices! DO they possess
that keen sense-those elevated views OF morals,
which should induce community to allow them
10 testify as witness against a white person
The force of those objections is almost intuitive-
~ perceived. These objections are recognized
by the illiterate, as well as by the learned, and
acted upon daily.
This is an innovation SO striking, so alarming,
so repugnant to all former practice and TO all
ideas of justice. and law, that il may be safely
pronounced to furnish, especially when COM
bined with the principles involved, the most for
midabe, the most irresistible engine of oppres-
sion, under the forms Of law, that was ever
placed in the hands of power; and if he day
| should ever arrive, which Heaven in lis mercy
avert, when this engine shall be welded under
the direction of party spirit, or of popular passion
instigated by personal malice, dreadful indeed
will be the fate Of those whom il may be the
| object of the moment to destroy. Against doc
| lrine so absurd and mischievous, SO contrary TO
every notion of justice hitherto entertained, SO
utterly subversive Of all that part of our system
| which has been so wisely established for the
protection of life, liberty, and properly, that we
deem it our duty, and on every fit occasion, to
enter our protest and lift up our voice in opposi-
| ton to your restoration to power; and we trust,
| that in the discharge of this duty, we shall find
appreciation and support in the heart OF every
man who respects the principles of justice and
law.
| Indeed, you must have had strange views OF
the nature of the human character, and have
made little use Of the lessons 10 be gathered from
the history OF the negro race, to suppose, what is
necessarily implied in your argument, that such
an abominable system which you have sanction
ed could exist in the Southern States, deprived Of
all its pernicious relations and accompaniment,
stripped OF its power in way to do harm, ex-
cept in that particular direction which you have
chosen to imagine.
You seem to have fallen into the common prac-
tice oflooking only at a single direct and immedi-
| ate consequence of the error committed by you,
unconscious OF the necessity Of expanding your
| views over the whole circle of its influence and
| connections. A single glance at the condition of
| the slave-holding States sut6ces to show that
this doctrine is necessarily connected with other
doctrines that when once this system is esta-
blished, other dependent systems spring up
around it, with all their concomitants and con-
sequences, which never can be beneficial to the
country.
Whatever your intentions may be, it must be
obvious that this portion of your administration
meets with universal condemnation-as essen
tally an inefficient, trimming, half way sort of
Government-too captious, pernicious, and dis
respectful to authority, to be successful in ad-
ministering the affairs of the country, and too
cautious and tenacious of old doctrines 10 deserve
the confidence, or excite the sympathies, Of a
generous and enlightened people. During the
four years you administered the Government,
you stand convicted of dealing in contradictory
and equivocating doctrines; of practising a con-
tlnual see-saw of admissions and retractions
of saying now a word for the people-now one
for those in power-now one for the corrupt ear;
Of paralyzing all liberal propositions by some
timid and paltry reservation, and never being
betrayed into popular sentiment without virtu-
ally chilling and neutralizing by some cold fears
of excess, some cautious saving of the principles
of expediency or constitutional doctrine.
In no one instance has there been either wis
dom in your deliberations, or fortitude in your
conduct. Never, certainly, have the public coun-
ellis of any nation exhibited within so short Pc
Rod, SO much Of conscious imbeclity and vainglo-
| rious conduct so much of shameless inconsistent
cy and clumsy dlsingenuousness; SO much of cor
| ruption and disregard of law. Every step of your
Administration indicated, if not what Bolinbroke
calls sousing prostitution, at least a combina-
ton OF weakness and folly, of narrow prejudice
and low art6ce, calculated to produce effects
equally disastrous. In the policy which char
acierized your Administration, there is nothing
but what is ignobe and inglorious, confused and
grovellng illiberal and sordid; which is fitted
TO emascuate and degrade the State, to lower
the conceptions OF the nation, and blunt her mo-
raj sense, the corner stone upon which the fabric
| of our liberty rests.
| For many years you have stood before the
American people as the violent enemy of whole
some reform, the apoogist for usurpations, the
| advocate for the abuse, every approver of every
corrupt system, and, as | am not a believer in
sudden conversions to virtue in The Gih act Of life,
can discover no reason for assuming you to be
other than you have always appeared. If you
have had call--a ne,o birth unto righteous
ness-the blessed change must have been of very
recent date. And if you have been, as some of
your clique seem to suspect a friend to the peo-
pie IN disguise, should apply to you the remark
of the hackneyed epgram
Perhaps II was right 10 dissemhle yo,lr love