The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1848-12-16
p o L / Il &c A L :.
Presidents Message.
Spirit of the Press.
From the N. Y. Tribune

"A Message from the President OF the
United States ought to be document
which all the People of this country
should take interest and pride in
which al of us should regard as written
for us and not against us--which should
set forth the state of the nation without
prejudice, untairness or narrow PARTISAN
ship. Tt ought to be kept within COM
pass which all our journals could conve-
niently publish and all our citizens find
time to read 1t ought, We think, in
common fairness, not TO be constructed
on the principle of the bar-room dis
putant who talks so loudly and so lnces-
sanity as not to allow his opponent to
get in word edge-wise, and then exults
in his harangue as unanswerable because
no one has had chance to answer 1t.
But more especially does modcsty and
respect for adverse convictions become
President standing in the position of
Mr. Polk-the leader and MOUTH piece
of a discounted party. The questions
which he now propounds and discusses
have been for months past at issue before
the grand inquest of the Nation. He
has argued reargued them Message after
Message his partisans have discussed
them on the stump and through the jour
nals-they have had every opportunity
to commend the views he approves, with
the great advantages of the power and
patronage of the Government and the
prestige of almos! unbroken success on
their side But they have been met in
the canvass by men at least equally able,
equally enlightened, equally strong in
convictions Of right, and have been sig
nally overthrow. All that Mr. Polk
now urges has been already commended
to and weighed by the People and by a
minority OF them pronounced unsound
and inadequate to balance the opposing
considerations When therefore, this
discarded public functionary, with no.
tlce to quit at short date posted on his
door ventures to assail the line of poll
cy Just approved by the majority of his
countrymen as not merely mistaken and
injurious but actually impelled by dis
honest and selfish spirit--a disposition
to grasp undue advantages and build up
favored and privileged classes-how
shall we refrain from reminding this gen.
eral lioeler that his case Is substantially
that of the Gu! pitt who curses and gnash
es his teeth at the attorney who prose-
cuted, the jury who convicted and the
Judge who sentenced him-the serpent
that Kisses harmlessly yet venomously at
the heel which tramples him. The re-
turns of the late Election are his sufi-
Gent answer.
That Mr.. Polk has always misapprc
hended, opposed and hated the protec-
tive Policy and its adjuncts is no news
to us. We, knowing his past career,
were not deceived by his Kane letter.
would that others had not been That
he should argue, however unseasonably
and immediately, against the policy we
cherish, is his right, and we do not OBJ
ject to it. But when he steps entirely
beyond the line of manly argument to
impute base rotives TO his antagonists
to accuse the founders and advocates of
the American System with deliberate
design to build up favored and privileged
classes-we feel that the proper answer
to his calumnies is an expression of the
scorn and aversion they have excited.
Why is he not content with the igno-
miny OF defeat, without seeking to add
th,t of general loathing?
Mr.. Polk processes to be Democrat
"a pupil and loyal follower of the pc
litical school whose doctors in his youth
were Madison, A. J. Dallas, Crawford,
Calhoun Clay, Lowndes, Tompkins
Snyder, Baldwin, &c &c. If not utter
ly ignorant of the history Of those days,
he knows that the great majority of the
leading Democrats of 1890 were
among the champions and authors of the
American System, while majority Of
the Federalists in Congress were adverse
to it. If, therefore, he sees fit to incul-
pate tie Democrats of the last genera
ton as the champions of monopoly and
privilege, while he makes the Federal
opponents defenders of equality and
Justice, how shall he repress popular
suspicion that the like has been true in
other cases-ray be true now?
From the National Inteligencer.
We have only room to say, what ev-
cry reader must readily perceive, that
more than one-half of the unwieldv body
of this Message is made up of elaborate
political dispositions, which are entire
ly out of place where they are. The
Constitutional provision, which author
ICES communications by the President to
Congress, is expressed in terms which
preclude all idea of mere party essays
and TRADES such as these which fill the
last five columns of the Message, arraign
ing every Administration OF the Govern
ment, from that of Gen. WASHINGTON