Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1848-10-12

Deaths pale d. not advanced thcte''
repeat it, that neyer vet heard the first
man say that any one of the doctrines upon
which our party was organized have lost in
the slightest degree, their Importance and
value in practical politics.
How can he say so! Let me ask you to
glance, for a single moment, at two or three
of the great ideas Of the Wing party; and
] will promise to be brief Glance for a
moment at few of the great ideas that
ma. le up, this day aud have ever made up,
the creed of the Wings. And | shall put
it to you, that Time, that changes every
thing, has here had no other effect than to
reveal more prominently their granite struc-
ture, their imperishable valrc, their immor-
tai being and nature | linrer fondly and
sadly, to enumerate two or three only of
them in the order of their Importance, as
they have struck my own mind.
Prominent then, among the great objects
for which we strove in 1870, and first, was
that great doctrine Of constitutional liberty,
that the will of the people, expressed and
embodied by their delegations in Congress,
in the form of law, under the system of
checks and balances which our fureiathers
wisely established, the will of the people
constitutionaIy embodied in law, and not
that of the Contention in Baltimore or Buff
falo, not the noise Of faction in the street,
not the veto of party President; that will
and not the purchased corrupted admins
tration, bought and sold by Executive pow
or, should be the true government of this
country. This has been, as You know at
all times, fundamental and cardinal doc
tri, i 81, al, =.
was that the Commons of England brought
Charles TO the block to maintain this it
was that the Revolution of l6SS, in Eng
land, was planned and conducted. This
principle it was that saved the Government
of England, when France, and Austria, and
Spain, and Russia, bowed their heads for
100 years. To maintain this, was one grand
object of solicunde in our own country, in
the formation of the Constitution in 1850.
To maintain this doctrine, you and such as
you, fellow citizens, arose in 1910 against
that enormous perversion of our system a.
chieved by Andrew Jackson, recommended
by his irresistible popularity, aud enforced
by his iron will, and afterwards maintained,
| believe about four years by the more vul-
peculiar aud feline politics of Martin Van
Buren,.
Yes, fellow citizens; what an enormous
peryersion ofour Constitution was that NOR
bid enlargement Of Executive power On It's
head rested something more than "the like.
ness Of II Kingy crown" Flushed with
victory, waiting for the spos, when these
were everything; and the Supreme Court
and Constitution and the departments O
Congress were nothing at all; because the
veto crushed it all, one single iron will per-
vaded every bone, every muscle, every
nerve. every drop of blood in the body pol
| tito. This consnmmate system Of govern
! ment, with all its arrangement of check:
and balances, devised with all the ingenuity
of man, to insure the government Of rea
son and of law, and not of one man, this gov
ernment this Constitution degencrated, IN
der my own observation and experience, in
to a Greek. democracy, the most unstable
and corrupt form Of government God eve
suffered to exist one hundred years in Thu
world. We bore it all under Old Oliver
because we could not help it, and we put i
down under his punier son, Richard, exact
! ly because we could help it.
And is this spirit of opposition dead il
the public mind Is not this morbid exer
else of power more to be feared in Gen
Cass than all his other politics put together
Has he not been the foremost to declar,
that he should come ready to veto the fu
i ture law of freedom Why he comes pledg
ed to veto anything like it. Look at tn
practice Of Mr.. Polk, and has he not prom
sed to walk in the not very illustriou
footsteps" of his not very " illustrious pre-
decessor ~ Has he not promised to stee
his ship through his whole track, with tn
chart and compass of the Baltimore plat
form! and with the practice of Mr.. Poll
before you, what future is before You
You desire to keep slavery on this side c
the Rio Grande; if you desire to achieve
z system of internal improvements to Civ
20 the commerce Of the interior a safer han
, Dor upon the lakes if you desire the pro
lection Of labor, or the payment of tn
French spoilation claims for a century tc
} gether; the veto shall tell you that you hay
: got master. All this we see from the praC
) tice of Mr.. Polk, and from the platform lai
down at Baltimore.
+ What more terrible than this TIL
great question that agitates this great cour
try today, this question of freedom an
, slavery in New Mexico this question thu
I convulses our nation, and shakes it to til
t centre, at which every good man is ready t
r turn pale, is only the last and btlerest iru
t OF a morbIdy developed executive powe
Happy if its all but mortal tuste shall arous
4 the country to cut down, before it be 10
t late, that tree Of poison and Of death. Ho
G came California aud New Mexico abor
] your necks at all Whom have you to than
for that In an age of profound peace hel
! and every where, IN an age OF Industry, /
n an age Of the people, when executive pow
: er seems almost dying out OF the minds
}, men, when thrones are shaken, when eve
S " the iron quality of Austria seems reso
y ing" and Russian absolutism scarcely sal
: within its SHOWS; with Congress against wa
: with the people by vast maJorlties again
2. 1t, the President of the United States Ia
G power to plunge them into it, and to plan
j scheme OF Invasion, to pour along 1t the n
S ny tide of American valor, and It's fruits Al
S about us. In blood poured out as water,
It treasure squandered, millions upon million
g in territory added to US three times large
n than all France, in this question that shake
n and convulses America today, we see VIII