The Middlebury galaxy. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1848-1850, 1848-09-05
William Slade on
Gree Soil"

(
deeply seated is this feeling, that we nvoluntar1-
" respect the man who is consistent, even IN error
| Inconsistency eyinces WEAKNESS or WICKED
NESS.
WIN. SLADE, Speech IN 1892.
General TAYLOR is not reliable WHIG."-"
have made up my mind to vote for VAN buren,.
| VIM SHADES Reasons for
Izgivesation, lS4s.
A few evenings since, it was our fortune to
listen, for something more than two hours, to
some of the " reasons" of the Hon. VIM. Sade
for being "a sort of sec eder from the Wing
party" When this remarkable discourse came
to an end, we have not very definitely ascer-
tanned. Having no /" latch-key," and greatly
dreading to be excluded from our lodgings, ex-
hausted as we were in body and spirit, We
withdrew, in common With considerable por
| ton of our fellow auditors, little before the
"short hours" made their appearance. Very
likely we lost the gist of the whole matter, yet
there may be no harm in mentioning some
things we did hear-nor will it, we trust, be
construed as personal abuse"
Mr. Slade admitted that all whom he adj
dressed { a rather promiscucus assembly, ca
ger to get sight of" the" Fan Buren, Wig
the only living specimen known in this region)
were opposed to the "extension of Slavery"
What should we do, in the premises, was the
question to which he would confne himself
After stating that Cass was pledged to veto a
bill restricting Slavery, he Immediately went
on to give his /" reasons" for deserving the
Wing party. This personal matter occupied
the greater portion of the time during which
we listened.
Nobody in Vermont, said Mr.. Slade, ex-
pected that Gen. Taylor would be nominated
Everybody was taken perfectly by surprise.
They could hardly believe their senses. The
news was like a clap of thunder in the open
sky.-Now, as Mr.. S. was not in the State at
the time to which he refers, and had not been
for some months previous, it is easy to suppose
that he might be ignorant of the fact that two
influential papers in this State warmly advo-
Gated this nomination, that many individuals
in various parts were jealous in its favor, and
that the friends Of Henry Clay had, for some
time previous to the meeting of the Convention,
very little hope of preventing it.-This has
no hearing at all however, on the subject
in question, except as it gives us, at the very
outset, test of the judgment and accu-
racy of the Speaker.
The next thing in order, to be proved, was,
that Gen. Taylor is not reliable WHIG.-
Mr.. S. would read from Gen. Us letters
Entirely passing over repeated and distinct a.
vowals Of Whigism, like the following Gin the
letter to W. E. Russell, July 81, 1S46: l
AM A WING, and shall eUer be devoted in indi-
Uidual opinion TO the PRINCIPLES Of that par
ty''-an avowal which of itself, forever settles
the whole question-he proceeded to read from
several of the earlier letters-though all, we
believe, written subsequently, to the one we
have just quoted from-passages going to
show Gen. Taylor's unwillingness to be par
tizan candidate, or to stand as the exponent of
party principles. One of these letters states
that his position, in respect to this matter, is
IMMUTABLE." All this has been perfectly IN
derstood from the beginning. We have al
ready shown in this paper, that Gen. Taylor's
ground in regard to party pledges is precisely
like that of GEN. HARRISON in 1910, and of
JOHN Quincy ADAMS, when a candidate for
Congress, in 1881. And vet, after reading
these passages, this scrupulous Whig,C Dwith
very bitter tone and accent, would exclaim,
: There's the Whigisrn for yOu!" "7Aere's a
little more WHIGIsM p and so on. This same
furious champion and defender of injured
Whigism, before he closed, avowed his DELHI
crate intention of voting for that Subtreasury,
Anti-tarifr, L" Northern Man with Southern
Principles" MARTIN VANBuRENl
In respect to the Allison letter, MIR. Slade
remarked, LIST, that Gen. Taylor was screwed
up to write it, in order to secure the nomina-
ton Ono authorities giren) ! I'd, that he did not
write it, but that it was drafted for him b,
some of his fiiends(nO authOrities); Sd, that the
letter was wonderfully different, in the posi-
ton assumed, from one written two days pre-
'4OuS anu (''e"eey, diter lOilS anu clrCultOus
comments, he asserted that Gen. Taylor main
tanned in this letter the same position as in all
previous ones Incredible as it may seem,
this is literal, unexaggerated statement of
Mr.. S,ade's positions.
He undertook to read the Allison letter-did
read that emphatic declaration of Gen. Taylor, II
AM WHIG"-and his audience laughed-wheth-
er at him or at Gen. Taylor, we will not presume
to say. 1t is charitable to suppose however, that
a goodly number of his auditors, thinking the
veteran soldier understood his own principles
quite as well as Mr.. Slade, regarded the special
I pleading of the latter as exqusitely ludicrous.
We were surprised at his unfairness latter be-
ing caught once) in emitting words, members Of
sentences, whole sentences and even, in one in
stance, whole paragraph, bearing directly Oh the
question at issue After such reading of the let