The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1852-06-25

+ From Frederick Douglass Paper, June, H.
The DEMOCRATS AND THEIR PLATFORM
Y The Democrats have nominated their Presl
Q dents, and fixed their platform. We have nc
n doubt that General Pierce, Of New Hampshire
} and King, of Alabama, are well adapted TO the
: platform, and to the taste of slavedom- There
! are great number of what Mr.. Greeley very
properly Gala fossil issues stated in the plat
form, which are thought Of now days only as
antiquarian relics, but as nothing OF interest IN
these times Such are matters In regard to a
national bank, internal improvements, State
: debts, &c. These are important, but they are
no. matters that enter into the conceptions OF
parties now. The subject Of slavery is the only
subject about which partisans rally. The South
has repeatedly declared that no other quest. ons
shall be regarded, and none other are regarded.
And even slavery, as a party question, is mar
rowed down to very small limits. Mr. Webster
declared that the Compromise, including the
fugitive slave law" should be the only Issue,
and 80 it is The Democrats, not to be out
done by the Wings, reterate the same policy.
The only difference between them now ls-the
Democrats choose to publish their platform as
a matter of expediency, and the Wings say they
are the fathers of the policy, and it will be need
less to re.assert it.
We give the only portions of the Democratic
platform which have substance. All the rest
are mero matters of form, or, as Mr.. Greeley
says, fossils"
That he liberal principles embodied by JEFF
ferson in the Declaration of Independence, and
sanctioned in the Constitution, which makes
ours the land of liberty, and the asylum of the
oppressed of every nation, have ever been card
inal principles in the Democratic faith; and eve
ry attempt to abrdge the privilege of becom-
| ing citizens and owners Of soil among us, ought
to be resisted with the same spirit which swept
the alien and sedtion laws from our statute
| book.
Had the Democrats taken that resolution
down for their platform, the Liberty party would
have felt that they had come upon Liberty party
ground. 1t is indeed our position, and covers
all our policy and principles. Ii asserts the
brotherhood of man, the equal rights to citizen
ship and to soil, as well as the important posi-
ton that slavery and oppression of all kinds
and in all places, are hostile to the provisions of
the Constitution of the United States How
absurd, in the light of this resolution, are the
three resolutions, which directly follow it.
That Congress has no power under the Con-
sttution to interfere with o. control the do
nestle Institutions of the several States, and
that such States are Che sole and proper judges
of everything appertaining to their own affairs,
forts of the Abolitionists or others, made to
induce Congress to interfere with questions of
slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation
thereto, are calculated to lead to the most
alarming and dangerous consequences; and that
all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to
diminish the happiness of the people, and en-
danger the stability and permanency of the
Union, and ought not to be countenanced by
any friend of our political institutions.
This is the old Baltimore platform of forty
EIGHT, to which they add the two following.
The measures referred to in it are its natural
children, and it is not expected that they would
dsown or desert their offspring -
Resolped, That the foregoing proposition
covers, and was intended TO embrace, the whole
subject of slavery agitation in Congress; and
therefore the Democratic party of the Union,
standing on this national platform, will abide by,
and adhere to, faithful execution Of the acts
known as the compromise measures settled by the
last Congress-the act for retaining fugitives
from service or labor included which act being
designed to carry out an express provision of the
Constitution, cannot with fidelity thereto be re-
pealed, nor so changed as to destroy or impair
its efficiency.
Resolued, That the Democratic party will re-
sist all attempts at renewing in Congress or out
of it, the agitation of the slavery question, un-
der whatever shape or color the attempt may be
made.
Freesoilers, by thousands, fled from the Demo-
cratic ranks when they read the platform of forty
eight, which we give above, and continued away
until led to their places again by their Van Buren,
leaders What will those Freesoilers do now,
when they are called upon, not only to adopt
the old Baltimore platform, but its progeny, the
compromise and fugitive slave law? We have
| 70 half az IF
such Freesoilers will abandon the Democratic
party-never to return to it. Some so.called
Freesoilers, alas too many of them will remain
with the Democratic party, we doubt not, for
personal ends; but we cannot cherish so mean
! an opinion of human nature as to believe there
are not also very many more who will turn with
indignant scorn from this conspiracy against the
| rights and the Constitution of the country. The
conventions to be held at Cleveland in August,
and at Buffalo in September, will take encour-
agement from this bold and infamous declension
of the Democrats consequent upon the Webster
and Fillmore compromise.
From the Boston Commonwealth, June IT,
SHALL THE CAUSE BE SURRENDERED ?--Shall
all opposition to the slave power cease? Shall
| all the interests of freedom be abandoned 3
Shall the men who have for many years past
been bravery c0ntendlng against the encroacn-
ments of slavery and the extension and perpetu-
alton of an institution which is at once the drest
curse and the deepest disgrace of our country,
stink away, and give up the contest? These are
the questions which now come home with ire
sistible force to the Freesoil party. How shall
they be answered!
Another struggle has come on. One party
has met in convention, and tamely surrendered
| all to savery--has bowed down in the most
| abiect submission to Southern domination, and
adopted platform and candidate unequivocal-
" pledged to the interest of the Shareholders.
Nothing can be more full or explicit. The other
party meet the present week, and will nndoubt-
eddy take similar, aye, if it were possible, a
more degrading positions and then whats
! Why, the people, the voters of the United
States, will be called upon to sanction their pro.
ceedings by sustaining their nominations Will
they do 500 Undoubtedly the great majority
, of the members of the two great parties into