The National tribune., 1909-02-04

anything else, is fechigIss II, caipmnia-
| tor. ~ io
comprised less than one-half the quail
flied electors of the Uniteq States. In
the first year of its existsnce, without
a National organization or any definite
plan of action, it polled $4,000 votes,
exceeding by thousands the votes of its
| adversaries. In the late Presidential
election it polled 730,203t votes, exclu-
sive of South Carolina and Michigan
The elections of 1897 have already
demonstrated that the Wings are the
democracy of numbers by $4,000 ma
| jority.
The Wings will continue to contend
| for the reform of existing abuses in
| Government, and the dismissal of in
| competent public servants from the
trusts which they have abused: the re-
| trenchment of the expenses of the Gov
ernment, which have swelled from 12
millions per annum under Adams to 32
millions under Jackson, and still more
under Van Buren,; the limitation of the
powers of the Executive now practically
despotic, and the restoration of the era
| of good feeling, of contentment, of con-
| stitutional liberty and Of National pros
perity. Freemen of America, these are
our principles and objects. Are they also
yours? If yea, evince il at the polls.
Brilliant Leaders.
Into this party came men of the
most conspicuous ability in every State,
men who left their mark upon the his
tory of the country and who are con-
spicuously associated with the great
| events which noted its progress. In
the New England States the "godlike"
Daniel Webster lowered above all 9TH
ers, but there were others of scarcely
less prominence, such as Evans, Kent
and Fessenden, of Maine: Slade, Col
lamer and George p. Marsh, of Ver-
mont; ]. @. Adams, Winthrop. Choate.
Everett, John Davis, Abbott, Lawrence
and Briggs, of Massachusetts,: Truman
Smith, of Connecticut; Granger, Fill
more. Seward, Spencer, N. K. Hall,
Tallmadge, Weed and Greeley, of New
York; Dayton, of New Jersey; For
ward, Meredith and Ingersoll, of Penn
sylvania; Bayard, Clayton and Rodney,
of Delaware; Kennedy, Cost Johnson
and Reverdy Johnson. of Maryland; +;
Archer. Bolts. Leigh and w. B. Pres
ton, of Virginia; Graham. Mangum,
Rayner, Clingman and Badger, of
North Carolina; Legare, of South Caro-
lima; Berrien. Forsyth, King. Stephens
and Toombs, of Georgia; II. w. Hill
lard. Of Alabama: s. S. Prentiss, of
Mississippi; Bell and Jarnagin. of Ten
nessee; Crittenden, Morehead, Garrett
Davis. Wickliffe, John White and I'm
derwood, of Kentucky; Mclean, Gid
dings. vinton, Corwin and Ewing, of
Ohio; r. W. Thompson and Caleb B.
Smith, of Indiana, and Woodbridge and
Howard, of Michigan.
The Currency Question.
The Whig Party lines were harden
ing under Clay's leadership into an as
sertion of a strongly protective revenue
policy and National currency of some
kind that would be rational and safe.
The settlement of the West and the in
creasing trade over long distances great
ly aggravated the evils Of a vicious cur
gency for some method by which the
money carried by an emfgrant would
be as good In one locality as another
also that the money which merchant
received for his goods sent some dis
tance would have a value In the ex-
changes where he made his settle
ments. The currency system was SIM
ply chaotic. Every State had a differ
ent banking system, with the notes
issued ranging from a 10 per cent dis
count to absolute worthlessness. and
such was the general distrust that no
matter how good the bank notes might
be that man might take in one place,
he would find disagreeable shrinkage
in their value the farther he got away
from home. AS people were travelling
and trading over far wider ranges than
ever before. this evil was Oppressive
on every man.
The party lines of the Democracy
were hardening in the same way. There
were very many able men In every
State in the following of Gen. Jackson,
and after his retirement from Office,
in 1888, these set themselves to work
making the principles upon which he
had succeeded the code of the party,
and they eventually gave the party the
chart by which 1t sailed until the slave
holders took possession Of the vessel.
The basic features of the Democratic
creed were extreme States Rights as
embodied in the Virginia and Ken
lucky resolutions of 1898. opposition to
internal improvements and bitter hos
tility to a centralized money power
State and private banks, absolutely free
from any direction, inspection or con-
troll outside the States, We're part of
their theory OF States Rights. These
were the leading questions upon which
men divided in those days while their
views as to the slavery question We're
kept far in the background. The ex-
treme Abolitionists and the even more
extreme Pro-Slavery men received COM
paratively little attention.
A New Gospel of Slavery.
A new and potent influence had
arisen which had been hitherto unsus-
pected. The almost simultaneous in
vention of the cotton gin, the spinning
jenny and the power loom had made
cotton take the place of other textiles
In the manufacture of clothing to a
prodigious extent, and the world seemed
crazy for cotton. 1t could not get
enough, and new lands to raise cotton
by slave labor became as much of a
mania as afterward were gold mines In
California. Slavery lost the benevolent
patriarchal character 1t had in the older
States, and assumed that of a fierce,
hard, commercial proposition, with
slaves worked in great gangs on a cold,
relentless, money-making basis. John
e. Calhoun, the finest logical mind ever
produced in the South began advocat-
ing theory of society to suit this new
commercial aspect of slavery. Instead
of deprecating slavery he took the bold
aggressive. insisting that il was q nat
ural order of society, beneficial alike to
the enslavers and the enslaved; that it
was a Christian duty to the benighted
Inhabitants of Africa to bring them to
this country and educate them in Chris
tianity and civilization, and that slavery
was the natural basis of a. democratic
government, having been taught by
Plato and all the writer's who followed
him. go
Where all the leaders on both sides
had been for years working together to
keep slavery In the background, Mr..
Calhoun insisted on its being Brought to
the front and aggressively insisted upon,
with bitter denunciatio,, 30 tboca u,bo