Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-06-14
TUESDAY,, JUNE Il. 1850.
is IT A TOWER OF STRENGTH ~

Our friends of the Boston Bee urge that
possession of the General Government is "a
tower of strength to those who have it.
Therefore, they intimate without exactly
saying it) that we should first aim to secure
possession of the General Government leaving
platforms, policy, and all such things to be ar
ranged afterwards. They have not considered
the matter carefully. We recollect that pos
session of the general government was not
much like tower of strength to John Tyler
when he lived in the White House and con-
trolled appointments to Office. Harrison and
Tyler had been elected by a combination
whose elements could not mingle and become
homogeneous because the laws of things made
it impossible a combination something like
that which the Bee is so anxious to arrange
for 1860; a combination in which there was
agreement in the desire to cheat the Democ-
racy," and not much agreement in anything
else. John Tyler's administration affords les
sons which may be studied with profit.
1t is easy to recollect also that the admins.
tration of Mr. Fillmore was not very fortunate
in its influence on the Wing party. In fact, 1t
forever. The Wing party never was quite
strong enough by itself to elect President
There was in it intelligence, worth, and talent;
il had an imposing array of men OF first-rate
ability, yet it never did and never could carry
the country without some loose arrangement
to secure the votes of outsiders 1t nominated
Gen Taylor, and through this arrangement
the country had the administration of Mr.. Fill
more. This gentleman had talent and person
al worth and he was not only Wing, but
Wing who had been elected to Congress by
anti-slavery votes. And, we suggest to the
Bee that its first duty to the policy it advocates
is to show, if it can, that his possession of the
general government was "tower of strength"
to the best things in the Wing party.
What weakened the Wing party and kept
it from power at Washington, was its habit of
trusting to expedients compromises, and car
rangements" Through this habit it became
an admirable Opposition party" Of course
we mean now the Wing national party as it
was in its latter days and not the Wing party
as it appeared and operated in such States as
Massachusetts and we commend the matter
not only to the careful consideration of the Bee
but of all those who may at times feel any thing
like longing to restore the past. The past
can not return. The men who carried the
country in 1910 have to a large extent disap
peared and given place to new generation of
voters whose political conduct will be regula-
ted by different feelings and convictions. That
old Wing party must remain suggestive
memory. Hereafter it can be nothing more !;
and those who would constrain the Republican
party to take its image and superscrpion, Sc
riously mistake the wants of the present time,
as well as the convictions and aims of most of
the men now arrayed against those in power.
The party whose mission is to arrest the pro-
gress of the slave power and restore the gov
eminent to freedom, must become much more
than mere opposition party. 1t must be
qualified, not only to elect President, but also
this work and we deem it not amiss to remind
the Bee that our party has platform which
was adopted by reclamation. 1t will succeed
it will carry the country, despite the follies of
some of its friends. 1t will nominate the right
man we are quite willing to trust it for
that; and its platform, "for substance of doc
trine, will live, without a sign of doubt or
cowardice, in the spirit and aim of those who
directits movements.