The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-05-26
OLD LINE WIGS AND CONSERVA
TIEES.

OLD LINE WIGS AND CONSERVA-
TIVES.
Conservative" according TO Webster
Is " one who wishes to preserve from ruin, inno-
vation, injury, or radical change; one who
wishes to preserve an institution, or form of
Government, in its present state" This defni-
ton of the American Lexicographer is peculiar
" applicable to the American Conservative,
and is not to be taken as a general and abso-
lutte definition of the English word. For in
England, and indeed, we believe, everywhere,
except in the United States, when the Conser-
natives are beaten in their efforts to maintain
the principles and msxims of Government
which they inherited from their ancestors, they
Immediately fall to fighting with their opponents
for restoration Of things to their former state
But not so the American Conservative" His
great anxiety is to maintain the present state
of things, whatever that may happen to be.
Ten years ago, the Conservative was a
stanch defender of the Missouri Compromise,
by which Slavery was forever excluded from
Territories north of Sc 3O In his JUDGMENT,
at that date, man committed moral treason
who even limited at the establishment of Slave
~ north of that line, or al its exclusion south
of It. The laws of the Modes and Persians
we're not more fixed, firm and irrevocable, &C
cosding to all conservative authorities, than
this act of 1920 for the prohibition of Slavery
in the Territories.
But mark the revolution which few brief
years have produced upon the minds of these
immovable opponents of changed Their bitter
opponents triumphed over them, literally over.
whelmed them as a party organization, over
threw all the landmarks of the past, and estab.
lished Slavery in all the Territories of the
Union, without regard to geographical lines
Presto, change! The Conservatives are in
stantly convinced, as if by a miracle, that the
old order of things was utterly at war with the
constitutional rights ofthe South they now see
clearly that Congress never had the right to ex-
clude Slavery from any portion of the public
domain; or, at any rate, if it existed when Jay
and Marshall presided over the Supreme Court
1t exists no longer under the bright light which
Taney's genius throws upon the Constitution.
The Conservative" of 1859 still justi6es the
definition of Webster, as "one who wishes to
preserve an institution, or form of Government.
in its present state"
The American Conservative has no ele-
ment of oppugnation. He has simply immo-
biHty. He sits down doggedly, until he is
swept away by the currents of active life and
when landed on the spot which he most dreaded
and deprecated, he is just as averse to going
back TO his original position, as forward to new
and untried one.
We have met with striking illustration o.
these remarks in a recent speech of the Hon
William c. Rives, made to a Convention of the
Virginia Opposition assembled at Richmond
1t will be seen that he very justly arraigns the
Sham Democracy for having raised all the Sla
very issues for selfish party ends, and yet h,
winds up, like a true American !" Conservative,
by endorsing and adopting the results arrived
ut BY the Sham Democracy, as the only SAT;
and stable basis of our Government He saws
"One of the chief arts by which this part,
has so long held possession of the Government
TO the serious injury of the country, and in spit
of the reprobation of their measures by a larg,
and unquestionable majority of the people o
the United States, is the fabrication of sec
tional issues and the fermentation of sectiona
iealousies, to divide the country, and thereby I,
nreyeut numerous masses of virtuous and hon
orable Gaen in both sections, who cordial
agree in 6stestatioE of their practices, iron
mating in any efficient cooperation to dsplac
them from power. The great instrument G
popular delusion which they WELD for this pul
pose, and to which alone they owe their III
natural foothold in the South, is the incessar
and pernicious agitation of questions connecte
with Slavery.
"They put themselves forward as the specis
and exclusive friends of the rights of the slave
holding States. They oficiously volunteer I
make political issues for the South and wher
BY means of those Fictitious issues, they hav
infamed the South, and secured her votes,
part of them equivocate about the meanin
and import of their pledges, and others 5etra
her into false and untenable positions, wher
she is doomed to humiliating defeat, and wher,
worse than all, she is shorn of that which ha
hitherto constituted her chief and in itself nvil
chile strength--the prestige of character fc
high moral principle that would disdain con
munion with fraud, unfairness, or indirection
auysort. Letthe late Democratic eelGircissense1
in the Senate of the United States on the tru