Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1853-08-17
whig Antecedents, &c.

IF Whiggery has always been consistent anti
slavery establishment, what circumstance called
forth and quickened into political existence such
men as John p Hale, Joshua R. Giddings, Chase,
Sumner, &C.. &C., Why oppose the election of
Henry Clay, General Taylor, and General Scott!
The foundation of the Free Democratic party is
the abolition of slavery. If the Wings were in
favor of it, why third party ever organized!
And yet the Star would have you believe that the
Wings have alaoays been consistent Gnt5-stGUery
partly Portage Sentinel.
The Star has never said any such thing. 1t
did say that prior to the nomination of Gen. Tay
lor, the antecedants of the Wings of Portage
County, on the anti-slavery question, were right ;
and we quoted numerous resolutions to prove it.
4 i Ohio Star.
This is specimen of special pleading, which
would be denomnated by the lawyers special
traverse. s'The Star has never said that the ante
cedents of the Whig party were olacays right, but
they aoere right until the nomination of Gen. Tay
Ior, in l84s.'
Now, Mr. Star, if the antecedents of the Whig
party have always been right, up to the nomina-
ton of Gen. Taylor, how long do you suppose it
would have required for that party to bring about
the abolition of slavery by continuing the same
system. 1t does appear that if the Wings had
been very anxious to make an exhibition of their
qer, or Free Soil demonstration, would, at some
time or other, during the last seventy years, have
evidenced such an intention. Why, from the
time of the Hartford Convention, down through a
series of Black Cockades, Cofin-Handbill, Anti
Mason, Hard Cider and Log Cabin Campaigns,
there is not one solitary indication of pro-nigger
principle apparent in the whole programme of
Whiggery. Now, if that party were always right
on that question up till l848 and the Editor of the
Star is right now, of course he is just in the same
place Whiggery was five years ago. nice po-
stion for ss Free Democrat J! !" This leads
US to suppose that the Free Soil party is no new
organization; not the faction of yesterday, but the
true whig party, which had forttude sufficient to
denounce the nomination of Taylor, and stand
fast to it's original integrity, going it blind for
Martin Van Buren, "renegade locofoco."
But again: If the Wing antecedants were all
right in 1914, why was the Editor of the Star op-
posing that parey, and going his length for the
cold Liberty Party of happy memory! Either
he or the Whig party was wrong then. Who is
right now?
He says it was the nomination of Gen. Taylor,
a STAKEHOLDER without platform, that produced
the rupture of 1848 and the formation of the Free
Soil party. We would enquire where was the
editor of the Star prior to the nomination of Gen.
Taylor! Not among the Wings, but one, as we
said before, of the old Liberty Party, and yet all
this time the Wings were consistent anti-slave-
ry party.
But even this does not answer the interrogato-
ries of the Sentinel which the Star has seen fit to
quote. eff Whiggery has always been consis-
tent anti-slavery establishment what circum-
stance called forth and quickened into political
existence such men as John P. Hale, Joshua K.
Giddings, Chase, Sumner, &C., &C.! =
Their hostility was openly avowed long before the
nomination of Gen. Taylor The Free Demo-
cratic party, then sailing under the Abolition ag
could never discover the least semblance between
the physiognomy of the Whig and Free Soil par
ties which appears striking to the Editor of the
Star. And it is perhaps worthy of remark, too,
in this connection, that he could never perceive
the similarity until he lost the public printing.
| "We," says the Star, shave asserted the opin-
on that we were upon the eve of new party COM
binations-that the old issues being obsolete, the