The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1848-06-10
From the LOUISVILLE Journal of Thursday.

FIOiu tue LOUISVILLE JOuInolO thursday.
WIG AND LocoFoco PARTIEs-THE PREsI-
DENTAL CANvAss.-The Presidential canvass
which now opens promises to be more than
usually exciting. Recent events have worn a
deeper gulf than ever between the conflicting
parties, and have reused the public mind to
the deep and portenluous importance of the
struggle. In other like contests, great enthu-
siasm and great excitement have been exhibit
ed, but in the present the chords of the popu-
lar heart will be swept with greater power and
will echo with louder and more startling tone
than ever before.
For many years the great question has been,
! what SET of men shall rule? Shall the country
be ruled by honest and able men, INSTALL
ed by pure and enlightened party; with an
eye single to the promotion of the common
good, or shall it be ruled by selfish demagogues
with an eye single to their own aggrandise-
| ment-by de magognes who rise to power by
means of trickery, falsehood, and hypocrisy,
and who in power are guided by no principle.
and seek no other end than the maintenance of
their ascendency? This for twenty years has
been at the bottom Of the party divisions of this
tc0untJy.
IL is true that important questions Of policy
have constantly divided the country, but these
questions have not caused the great party d.
visions but have rather grown out of them. In
the progress Of great country like the United
States. many measures will from time to lime
become necessary for the promotion of the pub
lie good. These will be discovered and will
be supported by those who seek the public
goodj aud they will be opposed by the dema
gogues with no other view than to keep up
party division.
In the last twenty years that party which
professed to be the party of progress and boasts
OF lis energy and enterprise, has originated no
single positive measure but the annexatio Of
the whole of Oregon, involving a war with
England; the annexation Of Te1as the war with
Mexico, the annexation Of the whole of Mexi-
CO; and interposition in the affairs of Yucatan.
They have indeed reduced the measure of pro-
lection of American industry, and have locked
up the Government funds in iron chests,
but these were negative measures, growing
out Of their opposition TO what the Wings pro-
posed.
/ The first measure was that of the annexation
of Texas, conceived in the Administration Of
Tyler and eagerly consummated under Polk.
But this long interval of inaction, or of simple,
IdOgged, and factious resistance to whatever the
Wings proposed and the public good demand
ed, was followed under the Administration of
Polk with train of baleful projects evincing
a satanic energy long restrained but now let
loose upon the country. Van Buren's "let
alone policy" his dogma that the people ex-
pect TOO much of government, and his maxim,
openly and unblushingly proclaimed, that the
Government, meaning the office-holders, must
take care of itself and the PEOPLE of themselves
had resulted in the total route of his party
When they came into power again under a
leader of their own choosing, the present in
cumbent, they thought it expedient to give
some sample of their boosted progress,
and long, and bitterly, will the country
rue it.
| Their first measure was the annexation oil
Texas, a leading issue in the contest Of lS44
when the Wings opposed TO the uttermost, pre-
dieting all the evils which have since proceed
ed from that pandora's box.
Another issue of the canvass of'44 was the
Occupation and holding of the whole of Oregon
up 10 the line of 81 40. This abominable
measure, which would have involved the coun.
J try in war with England for barren and
worthless strip of land, was pressed with the
lgreatest earnestness by Polk and his party, un-
I'll the eloquent, unremitting, and powerful
assaults OF the Wings detached a sufficient
, number Of the party; including all those of any
, pretensiOns to character and craftsmanship
and saved the country from one of the most
disastrous schemes ever plotted by upstart and
folly and audacious wickedness.
Close on the heels Of the banked scheme oil
Oregon occupation came the war with Mexico
preci pitated by a rash, untimely, needless or
der OF; the Executive, which Congress had nc
power To control because ii was secret. This
war with its terrible loss in life and pecuniary
treasure, its demOlalizing influences upon those
r at home, its stain upon the national character,
{ and the petty malignity displayed by the Ad-
ministration toward those great captains who
reaped the laurels and repaid in glory in some
!, degree the sacrifices and disgraces of a wanton
war, againsta weak, defenceess power that fol
RI ten long years OF disgrace had not been able 10
stir finger againsta handful of insurgents in
Texas-lhis war with all its blunders, conup.
lions, peculation, favoritism, jobs and con-
tracts, will be fruitful theme of Wing elo.
|quence, before which the Locofocos will recoi
as their leaders recoiled in the Senate before
the artillery Of Wing eloquence on the Oregon
debate.
Next in the shower or direful ills shaken
{, from the comet-like train of Locofoco progress
was the annexation of Mexico. As the coun
try had been threatened with the "whole o.
Oregon or none," so il was threatened with
I the annexation of the whole of Mexico-not al
unpeopled desert like Oregon, but a vast ter
ritory peopled with many millions, of different
hues, but all the free, equal, and Independent
citizens of the Republic-a people who main
tain the principles of our declaration of indie
I pendence. and who naturally feel the greatest
Q hostility 10 this country; whom, therefore, we
Z could only hold by force, and who are SO igno-
rant and degraded that ifannexed by their own
! free will, it would be fatal TO this Republic
/ From this fatal annexation of the whole oil
} Mexico. the country will be saved by the per-
I severing efforts of the Wings, but it will prob
4 ably not escape without large apnexation oil
: territory, which. though it contains compare
lively few inhabitants, will probably like the
annexation Of Texas. produce finally the most