Eastern times. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1846-1857, 1855-08-02
4olitital.
LETTER FROM Ex-Gov. HUBBARD
To The Committee Of Arrangements for the
Democratic Meeting at Sedrsport.


To the Committee Of Arrangements for the
Democratic Meeting at Searsport.
GENTLEMEN Yours of the 5th, inviting
me TO be present and participate in the doings
of a democratic meeting TO he holden on the
10th inst, at Searsport, is before me. For
this kind expression of your good will and con-
fidence, please except my thanks. My sym
patbies have been with the democratic party,
and have never permitted myself to become
estranged from that party, or TO depart from
its principles and we'll established usages,
from any sense of personal wrong. Believing
as most sincerely do, that the party that met
at Augusta on the 21st ult., in convention, is
the true democratic party, that 1t represents SO
far as national questions are concerned the
democratic doctrines which were promulgated
at the first formation of parties under our gov
ernment-doctrines under the auspices of
which the country has been carried through
many fearful crisis, and which have brought
US TO our present standpoint of national pros
perity and grandeur,-doctrines which can
alone preserve and perpetuate this Union,
whatever of personal interest | have, whatever of
desire for the happiness of my children and of
posterity, should impel me to the support of
that party by all honorable measures that shall
seem best calculated TO promote its success
and ensure its ascendency. And what are
these doctrines may seem strange question
at this late day. But the mists and fogs grow
ing out of party agitations, and the formative
process of new party agglomerations, render
the question at this moment, perhaps, not in
appropriate, especially as our fusion oppo-
nents, at least some of them, claim to be the
true Jeffersonian democracy.
Democratic doctrines are and have been, a
strict, honest and fair construction of the con-
stituiion of the United States, without any
technical refinements or sublimated moral
speculatiens,- TO every state, slave
or free, the rights possessed, either in terrific
ry or otherwise, as an Independent sovereignty,
before entering into the Union, and which
were not surrendered by the constitution
and securing TO each state the grants of power
and principle awarded by that instrument
Such is the democratic creed as promulgated
from the beginning, and as such has it been
acted up to with as much consistency as is
compatible with human nature, under the ex-
citements of party strife, operated upon by
individual peculiarities and motives of perso-
nal aggrandizement. We ignore no plain pro-
vision of the constitution because it does not
comport with our views of higher law, or
our speculations of abstract moral right. We
take every provision as it is, and give to each
its due weight and force.
And now what is the national platform of
the party in power in this statel | say nation
al, for there are acts of special legislation both
state and congressional, which, however impor-
tant of themselves, and how much soever agi-
tated for party and selfish purposes, are of
temporary duration or limited application, and
never should be, as they never can be, made
issues for the basis of parties of a permanently
enduring character.
The question is more easily put than an
swered. Midst a conglomeration of know
nothingism, know-somethingism, free-soilism,
abolitionism and almost every other kind of
ism that can be conjured up, what kind of a
platform could be expected in which all these
isms could be represented! None has been,
TO my knowledge, promulgated, none at least
in which there is any common agreement, or
upon which they are all as party willing to
stand, excepting in so far as they agree in op-
position to the democratic party and to demo-
cratic measures, right or wrong.
In the absence of any such platform which
is tangible, will briefly allude to some of the
measures Of this new party, put forth in the
shape of resolutions and acts, as indicating the
attitude assumed by this party in relation to
matters concerning the nation, and also the
spirit of the party itself.
In the first place, by resolution passed by
the fusion legislative convention last winter,
they distinctly deny to congress the constitu-
tional right or power to legislate at all upon
the subject of securing fugitives from service.
If congress have no such power, where can it
lie but with the states severally to comply
with the unmistakable provision of the consti-
tuition which says that persons held to SER
vice or labor in one state, escaping into another
state, shall be delivered up on claim of the
party to whom such service or labor may be
DUE But Mr.. Sumner, the author of the idea
embodied in this resolve, while advocating it
on the floor of the United States senate, upon
being asked if he, as member of the Massa-
chusetts Legislature would support law for
carrying out this provision of the constitution,
emphatically replied, No; never! Our
Legislature at its last session not only assumed
the same position, but passed distinct act,
obstructing and throwing every impediment in
the way, so far as they could do so, to the
carrying out of this most plain provision of the
constitution.
Again, certain resolves were introduced,
towards the close of the session, involving
mainly the ideas of this fusion party concern
ing the question of slavery. In one of these
resolves was the usual clause, denying any
right or intention on the part of its supporters