The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-09-07
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nY rREDERIClJ. HAsKIN.

In national anairsI for ehS 'i1 time that organization placed expe- diency before principle to nominate War Hero for pHsident Winneld Scott was the he,o of the war of 1872 and of the WIT with Mexico. He had been defeated n the convention by a narrow margin by William Henry Harrison when ii was necessary 70 choose Q hero candidate to oppose Van Buren in 1s40 that was Tippecanoe against Lundy's Lane, and Tippecanoe won. As will b remembered. Scott was defeated in Ls40 by a letter writ ten to secure abblition support in New York. Writing letters was the one great business General scots n.e. He wrote lettes to everybody. about everything. an{ at all times. His let ters ruined hfn and his party, and when the vot6 were counted 1t was found that b had been overwhelm- dngly defeatd by the Democratic dark horse.f Franklin Pierce. Scott carried only four states in the Union, receiving bt 42 electoral votes to
 when Prsident Taylor died he was succeeded Il the White House by Mil- lard Fillmre. As has been the case in every hstance in which a vice. president las become chief magistrate ! fwith a ingie exception) the policy of the administration was reversed. Taylor hd permitted his policy to be dictated by the conservative Whigs. Fillmore was a liberal. As result of the rght-about-face attitude taken by Dansl Webster who went over to the norinterference-with slavery side in his beech of March 2, and of the successor of Fillmore, all parties were enable to get together once more on a couyromise basis.
 It ,as Henry Clay. the Great Paci- ficato who had made dozen .naen greatly his compromises. and whose comfomises had kept him out of the Whih House, who was once more call- ed the front in his old age to bring abot peace. The compromise of 1850 wa arranged. It. included several measures. The most important was tn admission of California as Free Stte, as that broke the balance of pSver between Free and Slave States if the United States Senate. It was te one concession to the North. but twas of far greater importance than ne South realized To the other side he concessions were stringent fu- kitive slave law, the maintenance of Slavery in the District of Columbia, the payment to Texas of $10.000,e00 for, yielding its claims to New Mexi- co, and the organization of Utah and New Mexico as territories without re- strictibns as to slavery. By this com- promise. Henry Clay united the war ring elements or the OeHfoCIAllC pdE ty and destroyed for all time the party which he organized and had captained for so many years.
 President Fillmore was a candidate for the nomination. General Scott anl MT. Webster were the other as- pihnts. MT. Fillmore had urged the conuomise through Congress and had approved 1t. He wished the whole country to accept 1t as the final dispo- sition of the whole slavery question. The lountry, for the most part, wish to accept it as such. The Democrat ic cqvention approved. The Wings had Q do so. To swallow the Fill moreClay compromise the Northern Whis were forced. but they would not swabw Fillmore. So' they took Scot whose sympathtes were believ- cd { be with the antt-slavery wing of tb party.
 G4eral Scott was nominated on the fiftEhird ballot in the convention. af- ter eated sessions in which a dele- gat, would now and then arise to gprE a letter from Scott. When the nouhation was made. Senator Jones of ennessee. the Lion Jimmy" Jones whlhad twice defeated James K. Polk forHovernor, leaped to the platform vii a letter from General Scott. It ws letter of acceptance couched in les than a hundred words, but pledg- in loyal and exclusive support to tbpIatform. That all too sudden let- Id helped to do his business in Mo- yhber.
 ieneral Scott had in years gone by eiliated with the Nativist party in
 unsylvania to the extent of writing tters attacking the Catholics and posing the foreign element in poli- cs. These old letters the Democrats sed against him with great effect Lorace Greeley shouted himself black n the 1@a.D in his attempts to defend Scott from Scott's letters, but 1t was of no avail.
 General Scott himself took the stump in an effort to win over the voters of foreign blood. He was great flat terer, and his reference to the rich Irish broRue'' and the sweet German accent" of some of his hearers were nothing less than ludicrous. The Whigs soon realized that Scott would be defeated, but the candidate hoped on. When 1t was all over he gave out an interview in which he declared that he owed his defeat to the New York Herald. the Webster defection and the lukewarmness of the Fillmore administration.
 Daniel Webster consented to become the head of a bolting Union ticket. but he died a few days before the election and his little party died with him. A few days before his death Webster sent Tor ms bosom trleno. Peter Harvey. and asked: "Is Rufus Choate going to vote for Scott" T don't know," was Harvey's reply, "but I think not" Then Webster said: "Tell him not to ruin his future by voting for Scott and tell him. as my dying message to him, that after the second day of November next the Whig par ty as a national party will exist only in history" The publication of this interview in the Democratic papers a few days before the election did not aid the Whig's dying cause. al- though Choate announced his fealty to Scott webster's prediction was cor rect. In 1852 the Whig party died and in the same year Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, its greatest leaders and its worst enemies. were gathered to their fathers. In the election the Whig ticket carried but four states Massachusetts and Vermont in New England and Tennessee and Kentucky in the South.
 In the Democratic party that year there was a great fight for the pre- sidential nomination. Lewis Cass.