Washington telegraph., 1856-05-14
THE FEBRUARY.Pr .PrATFoRM.

eS WHICH leu W snC VI SonA10eaoAA va s-,~s
party, and the adoption Of the principles
by which they are to be guided To some
of these causes. referring to well establish
ed facts, We briefly adverted in our last is
sue. To remedy the existent evils conse-
quent upon the wilful disregard of the pro-
visions of certain acts of legislation by the
party in power.-and to inaugurate and es-
tablish, as constituent elements of national
policy, those features in our platform which
we shall refer to in the course Of this arti-
Gle, the American party was organized.
The question of the extension of slavery,
has, by the acts of traitors at the North,
and from what has resulted from an act OF
legislation, which by its chiefest Northern
friends, was never intended to be fully un-
derstood by the South, until too late to avail
itself of its provisions. but which was fully
explained to the Northern people-been
made the paramount issue of the day.
And if any good could possibly result from
the continued agitation of this vexed ques-
tion-if the Kansas and Nebraska bill were
not final in its nature, as an act intended to
settle this question; if by the agitation and
consequent mutual irritation of sectional
feeling. anything. save a dissolution of the
Union were not the inevitable tendency of
this line of action, and if, also. there were
not other questions upon which Southern
men do not agree among the leading
features of the American Organization,
then the Southern people might be uni
ted upon this one issue. independent of
all others; for then there would be no ne
cessity of party. which accepts the Com
promise measures of 1850, as fnality and
which. with its principles reprepresented
and administered by national men, will
abide by those measures, and carry out in
good faith the expressed will of the people.
The first five articles of the Philadelphia
Platform speak to the intelligence. appeal
to the patriotism, and should meet with the
hearty appreciation Of every American
Viewed in every light in which they can
possibly be placed, there is nothing in either
one, save that which is in consonance with
whatever of good there is in the heart of man.
1t is the duty of the American people to ac-
knowledge the goodness and greatness Of
the Supreme Being, whose protecting care
has led them through the storm and dark
ness of the revolution up to the present hour.
The perpetuation of the Federal Unicn,
the work of patriots, inspired by heaven, is
an end and object at which all men who
prize their liberties should aim; an end, a
purpose, resolve at which the American
party aim, trust it is, to which they will
never be false. And that Americans should
rule. and will rule America eventually, there
are very few who doubt. There is no true
American, who by any exercise of even a
universal philanthropy. would be willing to
acquiesce in a violation of the principles in
volved in the 5th section. But these points
of the platform need no defence, nor does in
indeed, any portion of the platform, for ii
vindicates itself 1t is yindicated by its
adoption-by Fillmore. Donelson--a Crit.
tenden. by host of names great in history
above reproach-untarnishe with the taint
of sectionalism-patriotic in their instincts,
purposes and acts, and devoted to the Union
The platform is vindicated by the failure Of
| the opposition press to attack it, save by
some desultory twaddle about its secrecy and
its proscription--by their onslaught upon the
slavery section couched in idle terms, and
leaping to the attack with a volley of impre-
cations and epithets which are really anus
ing.
The Sixth Article of the American Plat
form is based upon the recognition of the
6nality Of the Compromise measures. Those
measures being fnality, and having for
their foundation the immutable principles
of the Constitution. will, if sustained and
recognized as the basis cf all future federal
legislation upon the subject of the extension
of slavery, answer every just purpose which
national men could possibly seek to carry
out Every friend of the Compromise
measures admits this-the supporters of
| these measures differ in their views as to
the application of the principles therein
contained. The Kansas and Nebraska act
gives to the people of the Union the right
to emigrate to the Territories of the United
States. And rill any man have the hardi-
hood to assert that the people of Territory
seeking admission to the Union with coz
stitution recognizing and establishing slave
~, would find anything either expressed or
implied in the February Platform to pre-
vent Its admission Or Is there anything
in the past of the men who have been selected
as the representatives. of the principles en-
bodied in this Platform, which can in any
manner justify men in asserting that they
would oyerleap the Constitutional barriers