Wisconsin herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1846-1849, 1848-09-16
MISCELLANEOUS.
The Buffalo Convention.

w e are now III puSStSslOu VI tic hi
FORM of the Buffalo Convention; Con-
yention made up of Delegates from the
New York party known by the name of
Barnburners, from the forlorn Wings whom
nothing National in its scope and object can
satisfy, and from the Radical party, who
would not be content to live under any Gov
eminent in which the rights of property, and
the duty to labor for ones bread are recog
nized as fundamental principles.
We place these Resolutions before our
readers, as belonging to the history of the
day; and if ever they have perused more
demagogue production-a more elaborate
attempt to mystify the Public, by wrapping
up self-evident or admitted truths in subli-
mated phrases to give them an air of now
city, why then their reading in the records
of hypocrisy and of pretence has been more
extensive than ours. As for MIR. Van Bu-
rem, the nominee of the Convention, If he
were privv to the Resolutions, he ought to
be ashamed of such incompatibllity as they
exhibit with the whole tenor of his political
life.
The +" demands" of the Buffalo Conven-
ton, to enforce which this machinery of a
third nomination has been got up, are, as
the reader will perceive, mere lines set for
gudgeons, which even the malcontents in
the Wing party are too clear-sighted to be
caught by. The Locofoco hook is too plain
ly visible through the fishy bait that is strung
upon it. Let us briefly analyze the six last
of these Resolutions, which alone, out of
the whole, present any thing practical.
The first of these six Resolves demands
freedom and established institutions for Ore
gon. Well; they have cot all that they ask
for Oregon. That demand, therefore, is
satisfied. That ground has slipped from
under them. They demand also the same
for the Provinces of New Mexico and Cal
ifornia. What sort of government is to be
given to those provinces now Territories of
the United States, is question to be here
after decided by Congress; and, by the bless
ing of Providence, we are going to have a
President, as Mr.. Van Buren, as not, to re-
spect the Legislative authority on that and
all other questions which may arise during
his Administration.
The first objects of the second of these
Resolutions, cheap postage, &c, are com,
mon to all intelligent men of all parties, and
can be no bait for any respectable party
Of the last clause of that resolution we can
not say the same. We regard it, on the
contrary, as contemplate appeal to the
Demagogue spirit, which is, in this coun-
TRY happily not formidable enough to be
worth the trouble of propitiating at such
price.
The third Resolution is altogether Wing
and seems to have been inserted, in the teeil
of the assembled Dissenting Democracy, tC
afford the Wing part of the Convention an
excuse for being present at it all. If there
lis any principle to which the Democratic
part of the Convention, with Mr.. Van Blu
rem at its head, has ever been steadily oppo
sed, it is the employment of the surplus
revenue of the Government in improving
roads, navigable rivers, harbors, and other
means and facilities of internal commerce,
or in doing any thing else beneficial TO the
People.
The resolution for giving away the Pub
lie Lands is just one of those appeals to
agrarian principles, to the mass OF those
who, too idle or improvident to become land
holders by labor, would willingly become so
iby favor, which party without any dis
tinctve principles of its own might be eX-
pected to resort to. The next step of these
Tertium Quids, after prodIgally wasting
the brth-right Of the People in these Pub
Ilic Lands, would be to divide the property
of all those who have earned it among those
who prefer the easier method of living by
their wits; to counteract by legislation the
ordinances of Providence, and confound all
its distinctions between industry and indo-
Ilence between carefulness and prodigalty,
and between virtue and vice.
The fifth Resolution, so far as it has any
clear meaning, is good Wing doctrine. Its
hidden meaning, however, constitutes its
virtue and its recommendation to the Barn.
burners, and, it is presumed, to the Wing
Recusants in the Convention. 1t is intend
ed to intimate denial of the right as well
as the policy, in devising Tariff, to dis
lcri,ninate in favor of Domestic Industry,
where it is necessary to protect IT against
foreign labor.
The sirth Resolution is an abracadrabra
of the leading principles of the Declaration
of Independence. The bombastic style OF
lii, however. makes ridiculous what would
otherwise have been respectable. Why
did they not cap the climax of their valor-
Gus determination to g fight on, fight eyer,'
lhy declaring their readiness to
:" Die all, die nobly, die like Demi-Gods!''
Such a conclusion would have as much
sense as what the resolution does declare,
and would have made the period yet more
Isonorous than 1t Is.
Seriously. however: it cannot escape the
observation of any attentive reader that
these Resolutions, very positive ana dog
lmatical about distractions of comparatively
small or at least remote consequence, care
f,Illy aBord any commitment upon The actual
IDraetical issues betaceen The ttco great par
lies of the country; making no allusion even
10 the Mexican war for the acquisition of
the foreign territory within which they con-
lirive to build up their distractions; TO the
Executive usurpations which have sprung
out of it; to the lust Of dominion which it
I has engendered; to the untold millions Of
money which it will be necessary TO raise TO
I nav the debt which il has created; TO the
twenty thousand valuable lives which have
thus been sacrificed 10 bad ambition, SC.