Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1859-04-30
THE PRESIDENCY IN 1860.
[prom the N.v York TrIbune.]

LFron the New OH AIIOuhe'l
new President of the United States is to be
chosen next year. We say new one, because
not more than half dozen persons, including
the Hon. james Buchanan. have any idea of re-
electing that eminent functionary. Mr., Frank
lin Pierce is n possible candidate; SO is Caleb
Gushing: so Eve hundred or five thousand
others; James Buchanan is an impossible one
We are TO have new President, and very pro-
badly new candidates on all hands.
This paper is pretty well understood to favor
the policy Of such action and the cultivation of
such spirit the part Of the Republicans as
will secure, if possible, union of the Opposi-
ton in the contest before US. We do not deem
it necessary again to contradict the rumors
from time TO time set'ahoat that we are laboring
10 nominate and elect A, Il, or @. The single
end we keep in view is the triumph of our prin-
ciplCS and the consequent advancement OF our
cOuntry's prosperity and honor. The elevation
lof A or b to the Presidency may seem to us
desirable, but the triumph of our cause IS of in
fnitely greater Importance. Men are at best but
means to an end; and that end is not their own
Induction into the Presidential chair.
In the last Presidential contest, the votes
of the American Peple were divided as follows:
,sos.ea2 Fremont. .:...i,ailrS i4
Fremont and Fillmore together over a77 $50
-of course, it is plain that n substantial,
practical union Of the electors who supported
| Fremont and Fillmore respectively insures q
triumph in 1860, even though there should be
some scaling off on either side, as there IprOba-
bly, would be. We can afford to lose One Hun
drcd Thousand of the Opposition vote in 1856,
and still carry the next President by u hand
| some majority.
! Is there, then any insuperable obstacle to
substantial union of tho Opposition in 1862
| In other words-What do the Republicans
insist on as essential that the other brach of
! the Opposition cannot concede to thcmr
Doubtless there ReDubIicanS whose ODin-
ions and feelings with regard to Slavery, are
such as are not acceptable to conservative
Wings. We, for instance, regard the oontnu
ance of Human Slavery as at once great crime
and great bunder-as the main, incltinS
cause of our country S miSiortunes and periis;-
wa do most narnSotly believe that Nirginia, for
example, would have had double the population
and treble the wealth she now has, had her soil
never been pressed by the foot OF a slave. So
of North Carolina. Kentucky, Tennessee; so,
emphatically, of Maryland, Missouri, Texas
But even we have no idea that the Federal Gov
eminent ever will or should undertake to inter-
meddle with the existence OF Slavery in any
State of this Union. We ask that Government
simply TO let Slavery in the States alone, pro-
tecting the inaviOabity of its Mails and that
personal liberty which the Federal Constitution
guarantees to every citizen, leaving the over
throw of Slavery to the natural growth and
diffusion of Intelligence, Humanity and Rel-
gion. That the Federal Government should
cease to be the active champion and proPugan-
dist of Slavery, whether in its domestic or its
foreign policy, we do urge and insist. Beyond
that point, we do not ask nor expect it to CO.
The Annexation of Texas under the circumStan-
ces and conditions of that Annexation, the over
throw OF the Missouri Compact, the whole course
of Federal proceedings in Kansas, from the
hour that Border Ruftians were first permitted
to harass and abuse her Free State settlers
without resistance or rebuke from those appoin-
ted and paid to administer the laws there, down
! TO the elimination of the Lecomptoa Fraud, we
hold TO be gross departures from that attitude
which it was the duty of the Federal Govern
ment to maintain with regard to Freedom and
Slavery. So with the monstrous project of
paying One Hundred Millions OF over for the
Island of Cuba for the single purpose OF cOnsti-
tuting a new buttreSs and support of the Slave
Power in our Union. Surely, it cannot be
necessary that one should be a deadly foe of
Slavery in order that lie should realize the gross
partiality and injustice of such projects as this
I'VE do not ask the Federal Government 10
spend Millions to strengthen the Free Labor
interest in our Union. We protest against
spending Millions for an opposite purpose
Who says that this project is not justified?
Nor do we ask desire the prescription of
Shareholders or Pro Slavery men by the Federal
Administrat on. If they insist on prescribing
rs, why then they raise an issue which we must
meet, and the hardest fend off But we
quite willing to return to the policy of the early
]
specting Slavery we're made :est of his fitness
for office. Now, it is notorious, no man is per-
mitted to hold office who is in any manner an
opponent of Slavery.
What the Republican party unitedly demand
and insist on is such a change in the policy of
the Federal Government as will render it no
longer patron and partisan but an opponent
of the future Extension of Slavery. We insist
that in future it shall act with regard to Slavery
Extension in the spirit which induced Jefferson
to devise and Washington to sanction its inter
dict in the Federal Territories, and Gen Taylor
to favor its exclusion fiom California. So
much, in essence, the Republicans must and
viii insist on: How many of the other wing OF
the Opposition will object to it? In o'her
words, How many Of the conservative Wings
desire that the Federal Government shall con-
tinue to be employed, as it has been through
tho several Democratic Administrations since
Fyler'S aPostacy, as an agency for the propaga-
Iion and diffusion of Human Slavery
We do not believe that there ten thousand
voters in the Union outside OF the National Dem
ocratic organization who desire the Extension of
Slavery, or that the Federal Government shall
favor such Extension. In our intercourse with
Southern Whigs-and it has not been very linn
ued-we never met ono who did SO who does