The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1863-01-15


For series of years the so-called Democrat
ic press and politicians of this state, nave
seemed to take especial delight in leyelling
their party artillery at the heads OF Senator
Morrill, and Vice President Hamlin, and no
terms of opprobrium have been too coarse or
malignant to find expression with them, when
they could be applied to either of the dstin-
guished gentlemen named. They have been
denounced as "abolitionists,' and "negro-wor-
shippers" and no pains have been spared to
convict these gentlemen of being turncoats,
simply because they refused to follow the lead
of men who managed to wed the northern
democratic organization to the vile harlot of
negro slavery. In both of the pro-slavery pa
pers of this city, the simple fact of Mr.. Nor
riil's reelection to the U. S. Senate-which
was done with complimentary unanimity-
could not be communicated by special tee-
graph without a fling of the most unmanly
character.
In view of such a state of things, we are
prompted to press the inquiry, who, upon the
slavery question, has undergone a change?
Have Messrs. Mamlin and Morrill, changed the
base of their opinions on this question, or has
the change been with those who now denounce
them? A few facts will furnish the best an
swer to these questions.
As long ago as ls46-7 Mr.. Hamlin was a
"wilmot Proviso" man, and planted himself
squarely against slavery extension. There he
has stood from that day TO this, and thought he
was good orthodox Democrat, in Irregular
standing" in the democratic church, he never
failed to express his hostility to slavery, and
to declare his purpose to work and vote
against il in all honorable and constitutional
ways. The bitterest enemy of Mr.. Hamlin
will not accuse him ofrecent conversion to an
ti-slavery views. His consistent record in this
regard will be admitted, and were it doubted,
democratic records are full and ample to show
that the "Wild Cat" portion of the Democrat
ic party-the samewlng which now controls
the State organization-for years opposed Mr..
Hr Hamlin, and opposed both his election and
his reelection to the Senate, on the very ground
that he was in sentiment opposed to slavery
He, surely, in this regard has remained I'M
changed
How has it been with Mr.. Morrill,? Going
back no farther than 1S55-the year Samuel
Wells was elected Governor-we find Mr..
Morrill, in Irregular standing" elected Senator
from Kennebec, and made President of the last
democratic Senate in this State. That very
year it was, in the State Convention which
nominated Wells, that Mr.. Morrill, made the
severe attack upon the Pierce administration
for its leaning towards slavery and the South,
enunciating the strongest antislavery doctrines;
and to show that he kindled no strange fire upon
the democratic altar, and that he enunciated
no new doctrines, it is sufficient to state that,
in the face of such speech, and such casti-
cation of Frank Pierce simply because of his
pro-slavery proclivities, Mr.. Morrill, was elect
ed by the democracy to the offices already
named. The facts here stated are sufficient to
show that the charge of turncoat, on this ques-
ton OF slavery, does not apply to him.
Who, then, has changed? Let facts answer
The Republican Convention that nominated
Lot NJ. Morrill, for Governor, passed a single
resolution on the slavery question. That res
olution was copied verbatim, without so much
change as the dotting of an or the crossing
of a ., from the resolves passed by the Demo-
cratic Convention that nominated Gov. Hub
bard, in this city, in 1s49, The Democratic
doctrine of 1S49, enunciated by the largest del
egate Convention that had ever then assembled
in this State with a single dissenting vote, be-
came the Republican doctrine in 1857, and
Mr.. Morrill, was elected Governor by the Re
publicdns In the latter year, on the Democrat
&c platform Of the former year! In view of
such fact are we to be told that Mr.. Morrill,
has changed? Did not the Democratic party
"right-about-face" on this question?
John w. Dana, the representative of the
most proslavery type of democracy in 1861, in
1847, s and 8 was rampant abolitionist,-as
that term is now used and did more than al
most any other man in the State, to give tone
to the Democratic party. His messages ex-
hibit doctrines which go as far in the direc-
ton of abolition as anything ever uttered by
either Mr.. Morrill, or Mr.. Hamlin. Has not he
changed?
The Argus, which now blows blast in ia
vor of slavery in almost every issue, was sup
porter of Dana and his doctrines, and was full
ly committed to slavery restriction. The ed
itor of the Augusta Age, now Jealous in sup
port of hunkerism and in denunciation of sab
olitionists," was only few years since in full
sympathy with the anti-slavery position of its
party in this State, and within five years it has
advocated cutting loose from the National De-
mocracy because OF the slavery proclivities of
the latter, and putting forth State platform
more in harmony with the views of our own
people. The editor of the Hallowell Courier,
one of the most abject pro-slavery papers in
Maine, was the publisher of the abolition Lib
erty Standard, and co-worker and full SYM
pathizer with Mr.. Austin Wiley. The editor
Of the Brunswick Telegraph-the Maine edi-
ton of the Boston Courier-was the Secretary
of an Anti-Slavery society in Bowdoin Col
lege.
In 1913 John d. McCrate-the then Demo-
cratic chief of ''Old Lincoln and candidate
for Congress from the "Comet Dstrict"-em-
bracing Lincoln and Oxiord-took special
pains to search the Congressional Globe to
prove himself sound in favor of restricting
slavery, and the record thus prepared he sent
to the Democratic paper Of his county by Vir-
gil ID. Paris, who insisted that the press should
be stopped to secure its insertion in the last
issue before electjoni W. aro,oI, f,r tb;s Fac.