Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1848-09-16
THE CAMPAIGN, No. IN.


MED by the two great parties of the country, and
pointed out the leading questions upon which, N
choosing between the candidates Of EACH the People
are TO pass by their votes, on the seventh OF
November next We say the tro great parties
for, although there be more parties in the field than
ever were before, they are, except two, ephemeral
merely. We doubt, indeed, whether single cleo
,oral vote, out of the entire vote in the Electoral
Colleges, will be cast for any other person for Pre-
sident or Vice President than the regularly nomi-
mated candidates of the Wing and Democratic par
ties In that case of course. every vote at the polls
not given for ZACHARY TAYLOR or LEWIS CAss for
President, nor for WILLARD FILLMORE or WILLIAM
o. BUTLER for Vice President will have been vote
thrown away. .. .
Some there doubtless are, who, bewiched by
distractions that are to be found in the creed of
neither party, have persuaded themselves that they
cannot conscentiously vote for the candidates Of
either. The individual scruples of our political
friends we may regard with respect, however little
of it we cherish in general for distractions !:
but their standing out and apart from their old pc
ltcal associates-in an emergency like the present.
in which every essential interest of the country is
at stake-upon point the 9. free soil' question,
for exampIe) which is not and cannot be made a
practical issue in the election, is conduct which
we cannot compare with any thing SO much as with
that of Swift's Llliputians, who, at moment when
their country in imminent danger of foreign
INVASION broke out into factions the question Of
high or low heels TO their shoes the animoses upon
which ran SO high that one party would neither
eat, nor drink, nor talk with the other. We have
all along believed that the body of the Wings
would see the matter in the same point of view
that we do; and this belief of ours is happily just-
fed, so far at least by the result of the election that
has just taken place in Vermont, State in which
the effect of the introduction of this new element
in politics was much apprehended.
We. have shown, we repeat, the grounds upon
which the two great parties, the Wing and Demo
cratic, will generally sustain their candidates. Be-
tween the principles of the respective parties,
which we have been thus endeavoring to make
plain, it is for the People to choose
Had we not seen it questioned, in Wing quar-
Ter, very recently whether Gen. TAYLOR was en-
lowed with qualifications and characteristics such
as to Justify the confidence in him implied by his
being nominated by the Wing Convention for the
Presidency, we should not have thought of saying
a word upon that subject. But, since seeing the
report of limitations OF doubt of his qualifications,
which were thrown out at the late New York
Meeting of Malcontent Wings, it has become a
grateful duty for TO devote this number of" The
Campaign 10 an exposition of our views of
THE SERVICES AND THE CHARACTER OF OUR
CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY
l, is no, to be denied that, but for the splendor
of Gen. TAYLoR's military achievements in the
Mexican war, his name would probably never have
been brought forward in connexion with the office
Of President. But for the events OF that war; the
knowledge of his rare and modest merit might have
been confined, as during his prior unobtrusive Ca
reer Of public service, almost exclusively to those
who have been associated with him in the ordinary
routine Of military duty. The public attention was
it mus, be admitted, for the first time, generally at
traced 10 him by the eclat Of the great battles fought
under his command near the Rio Grande. He
may be said indeed 10 have then almost literally
first discovered himself to his counlrymen in
blaze of glory; OF such glory as the multi
tude has the most lively appreciation Of, but upon
which humane and intelligent men, aIoof from the
multitude, also know how to place proper value,
when it is accompanied, in the case Of those bat
ties, by service the most important to the country
and by personal characteristics soldly good, sober
high. The news of the first successes on the Rio
Grande, all brilliant as those successes were, mad,
the deeper and more universal impression on tn
public mind, from their succeeding painful ap
prehension, which had for some days hung over il
Of the Army's being hcmmed in by superio
Mexican force, cut Off from its supplies, and per
haps compelled to retreat, if not to captuate. Tn
echo to that news, resoundng from the mountains
and valleys Of the West, gave back TO the Gulf 0
Mexico the name Of ZACHARY TAYLOR, accom-
panied by spontaneous ouburst in his favo
as a candidate for the Presidency. The popula
passion for Military glory had, therefore, much Il
do with the bringing Of Gen. TAYLOR into the pre-
sence Of the People, as it were, and directing thei
attention towards him as one worthy Of bein
clothed with the highest honor in their gift. i
word, had he not fought those great battles
we are ready to allow that he would not hav
been, as he now is, the candidate Of the Wings, a
well of some not belonging to that party, for tn
Office Of President of the United States. His mil
tary exploits brought him prominently into publ
notice. The fame OF them will doubtless have Sc