In looking back upon the public events of this interval, I deem it necessary, in passing, merely to notice the fact that the New Lights were greatly rejoiced to find in Mr. Van Buren's message to Congress a complete justification of the Secretary's promise to Mr. Flam, the import of which was to assure our representative that the President had made up his mind, after the rejection of that measure, to carry the Independent Treasury in spite of the people. Our uncompromising, fearless, and _unshakable_ Quods, true to the dictates of their creed, were, I repeat, greatly rejoiced at the manly perseverance and unquenchable self-will with which the President delivered over that question to the "Sober Secondthoughts" (a pest upon the unlucky coincidence of that phrase with my patronymic!--it hath given license to the tongues of the wags, to my annoyance) of the people. Every good New-Light Democrat in the land understood the hint--and a presidential hint is no small matter to a Democrat now-a-days. Truly delightful was it to see how it acted upon the New Lights. Not a man among them who had hitherto halted on a scruple of conscience, but became thereupon, in the twinkling of an eye, a devoted champion of the Independent Treasury; and that, too, without knowing, or caring to know, what it was. It was hoisted in capitals, at the head of Eliphalet Fox's Weekly, and became forthwith, as it were, a word written on our banner. We were, one and all, converted into milites subsignani, and became the Maccabees of this new kind of Independent Treasury.
It has doubtless often occurred to the reader of this irregular history to inquire how it comes to pass that the historian has ventured to relate with such composure, nay, with such complacency, what superficial thinkers, at least, might deem to be the _changes_ in the political principles of the New Lights. Superficial is a good word, and truly explains the case. Our _principles_, as every one who is gifted with sufficient astuteness could not fail to have observed throughout this narrative--and as, in fact, we have more than once insinuated--are much deeper than the _measures_ we, from time to time, find it convenient to adopt. We hold a change of measures, a change of opinions, a change of doctrine, and even a change of established facts, as nothing. But a change of men we totally abhor; a change of office, unless in the way of promotion, we utterly discountenance; and a change from a majority to a minority we execrate as wholly abominable, detestable, and in nowise to be endured. Now, in our creed, men, officers, and majorities make up the complex idea of what we denominate _principle_. The whole scope of the New-Light philosophy is, by the vigor of this thing _principle_, as I have defined it, to keep the Whigs down and our modern school of New-Light Democrats up. We proudly appeal to our past history to sustain our consistency in this pursuit. Let any dispassionate observer trace our meanderings through the last ten years: he will see the efficacy of our system manifested in the wonderful, the almost miraculous conversion of Old Blue-Light Federalists, and Federalists of every hue, into the Born Veterans of Democracy, and in investing these worthy relics of ancient patriotism with the most profitable offices in the gift of the government. He will see it in the merciless war--bellum ad internecionem--waged by our forces in the name of the people, against credit, commerce, and industry: he will remark how abundantly, and, as it were, by magic, it has fed the nation upon the economical, and therefore republican food of promises, relating to a sound currency--especially those referring to the gold and silver, while it was stealing along into the cheap and convenient system of a government paper in the shape of Treasury notes; and he will observe, with unfeigned surprise and redoubled admiration, how effectually it has secured to us the services and the money of the most opulent individuals in the land, and of the largest corporations created by the States--in a most signal degree those concerned in public works--while it preaches against wealth, chartered privileges and monopolies, and, by its zeal against them, has enlisted almost every penniless man, every wasted bankrupt, and every cracked reputation in the Union upon our side. But we have a still more illustrious exemplification of the practical value of our philosophy in the address with which affairs are managed by the head of the Treasury.
The letter of directions to the Hon. Middleton Flam, with which my readers have been favored in a previous chapter, it will be remembered, required the New Lights to support the Independent Treasury, and as necessary thereto, to take ground against the State banks, as altogether unsafe depositories of the public money. It further intimated, supposing we might be diffident about this, that the Secretary of the Treasury had already furnished evidence of this fact, and would, at the proper time, make it manifest that the Government had lost more money by the banks than by any other agents it had ever trusted. Our club had never before been aware that the Secretary had reversed his old opinions on this grave question, and we, therefore, lost no time in making a call upon our member for information. Great anxiety was felt to possess the Secretary's views. A substantial vindication of the Independent Treasury in this aspect, by the overthrow of the banks on the authority of the man who had built them up, was a desideratum which we all acknowledged; and its success we were prepared to regard as the greatest triumph of the New-Light principle, to be accomplished through the influence of that matchless Secretary, "whose mind," as Theodore Fog once remarked, "was endued with a radiating faculty sufficiently intense to light up the bottom of a bog, impart a vitreous translucency to the home of the frog, and illuminate the abode of the bat with a luster more brilliant than that which glittered through the boudoirs of the palace of Aladdin." We were aware that in 1834 his duty required him to prove that the State banks, while unmolested by the vexatious presence of a bank of the United States, were the safest of all possible custodiaries of the people's money; and that it was the Monster Bank alone which incapacitated them to fulfill their engagements to the Government--thence deducing the fact, that when the monster was dead, the public funds could be no otherwise than safe in their keeping. We were aware that at that time it was more particularly his duty to praise the State banks, because the unprincipled Whigs denied the fact of their safety, and opposed the scheme of giving them the public treasure, on the very ground that the Government had been a heavy loser by them from the period of the war up to the date of the charter of the bank. We had read carefully his report of the 12th of December in that year, and remembered these words:--
"It is a remarkable fact connected with this inquiry, though often represented otherwise, that not a single selected State bank failed between the expiration of the old charter and the grant of the new one; and that none of our losses included in our unavailable funds happened until some time in 1817, after the United States Bank was in operation."
This, and some other facts culled from the same report, constituted the armory of weapons by which our club so manfully fought and prostrated the croaking and factious Whigs of Quodlibet, when, in their ravings, they predicted loss from our employment of the pet banks. But the New Lights being now ordered to take another tack, and being promised a good fabrication of facts to fortify our position, we rested on our arms like soldiers confident in the talents of their general to intrench them in their new camp, secure against every charge of the enemy. Mr. Flam lost no time in providing us with the Secretary's report of February 27th, 1838. That officer did not deceive our hopes. This luminous paper carried demonstration on its wings and refutation in its footsteps. Prodigious man! Enormous functionary! Brightest of ministers! Samson of the New Lights! Aaron and Moses both in one, of our Democratic, Quodlibetarian, Golden-calf-worshiping Israelites, (I speak symbolically, and not in derogation of the anxiously-looked-for and long-desired Bentonian coin.) He but touched the rock of New-Light faith, and forth gushed the facts like water--yea, and arguments like milk and water. With what gratulation did we read,--
"The loss to the Treasury by taking depreciated notes, in 1814, '15, '16, and '17, is estimated at quite five millions five hundred thousand dollars; and there is now on hand of such notes then received and never paid away, or collected, about eighty thousand dollars more."
There was a conclusive argument to all that the Whigs might have urged in favor of the safety of State banks, if they had thought proper to defend them; and, in truth, it was some little mortification to us that our adversaries did not come out in favor of the banks, when we were so well provided with facts to put them down. But they, with that remarkable obstinacy which has ever characterized them, and which is altogether behind the age, stuck to their old opinions, and left us without anything to controvert, except, indeed, our own facts of 1834.
This instance, however, serves to show with what majestic bounds the New Lights have passed over the broad field of measures, and with what facile and graceful dexterity they have refuted that antiquated and vulgar adage which stigmatizes facts as stubborn things. Thus the beauty of this unrivaled philosophy consists in the harmony with which it reconciles past times with the present, with which it dovetails discordant principles, with which it brings into brotherhood elements the most repulsive, facts the most antagonistical, men the most variant, and contingencies the most impossible; which converts every man into a Janus, every highway into a labyrinth, every beacon into a lighthouse--giving to falsehood the value of truth, to shadow the usefulness of substance, and to concealment the estimation of candor.
Truly is it the great discovery of modern times! My reader, I trust, will not, now that I have opened his understanding to the perception of this sublime spell-working philosophy, allow himself henceforth to question the laudable sentiment of approbation with which I have developed the practical operation of this theory in the history of Quodlibet.
There was another matter worthy of remark in the events of the year, which I must cursorily notice before I proceed to the era with which I propose presently to occupy my readers. The Presidential election was now in view, and received that grave consideration from the members of Congress which they are in the habit of giving to everything in Washington except the trifling business of making laws. Our diligent and watchful representative, some time before the close of the short session, wrote to our club a letter full of important advice for our guidance in the affairs of the approaching canvass for the Presidency.
Among other valuable disclosures, "the Whigs," said he, "are to hold a Convention at Harrisburg. Harry Clay, or, as they term him, Harry of the West, is to be their man;--at least, so we suspect. Whoever he be, we have made up our minds as to our course--_he is to be run down in the South as an Abolitionist_. Abolition is the best hobby we have had since the death of the Monster. We have already broken ground; and if Kendall and Blair can't prove Clay or anybody else to be an abolitionist, the deuce is in it: their right hand will have forgotten its cunning. The Globe is full of the matter already. Tell Eliphalet Fox to begin at once and bark in the same key:--all the little dogs are expected to yelp after the old hound--or, as Pickens calls him, the Galvanized Corpse: many of them are at it lustily now. In 1836, Van's principles were luckily Northern;--so we have resolved to let them have full swing beyond the Potomac, and to put him in masquerade for the South. We rely implicitly on the stolidity of Pennsylvania; and shall secure New York by a concession to her banks, which for the time we mean to treat amiably. Our chief aim is the South. Van, being thoroughly imbued with the New-Light Quodlibetarian Democracy, has consented, for the benefit of our cause south of Potomac, to be dubbed 'The Northern man with Southern principles'--remember that, and tell Fox to ring the changes on it in every paper. We have hired a New Hampshire man to play clown to Van; and he somersets when his master does. This has a most striking effect. We call him the mannikin of the North with Southern principles--Van's mignonette. Our contract required him to bring in the anti-abolition resolutions touching the petitions; and although he could not venture against _the reception_, he has bolted down all the rest, _totidem verbis et syllabis_, as we wrote them for him;--_the reception_ we struck out to accommodate the Democratic abolitionism of his district. The effect of this coup d'etat was magical; and having gagged Wise and the rest of the Whigs with the Previous Question, we have left them in a state of unnatural retention which threatens to prove fatal.
It is universally considered here a most lucky hit--Van and the Mannikin; and we shall, with these performers, play 'The Northern man with Southern Principles,' to crowded houses. Keep it going!--and don't forget, Clay is an Abolitionist. If the Harrisburg convention nominates anybody else--the same paragraphs will suit _him_;--Mutato nomine de te fabula narretur. Get the Secretary to translate that. Be discreet, and show this letter only to the faithful."
It may readily be imagined that our club was thrown into ecstacy by this confidential missive. Being the custodiary of the letter, I have ventured, without the permission of the club, to incorporate it in these annals; taking upon myself the risk of their displeasure rather than withhold so fine a specimen of the New-Light Quodlibetarian Democracy;--and indeed I can see no reason why the world shouldn't have it. We have no secrets among the New Lights.
I proceed now to the Fourth Era in these annals.
CHAPTER XVII.
FOURTH ERA--THE HON. MIDDLETON FLAM RE-ELECTED--THE NEW LIGHTS DETERMINE TO STIGMATIZE THE WHIGS AS FEDERALISTS--MR. FLAM'S INSTRUCTIONS IN REGARD TO THE PRESIDENTIAL CANVASS--NOMINATION OF HARRISON AND TYLER--COURSE OF THE NEW LIGHTS--FORMATION OF THE GRAND CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF UNFLINCHING NEW-LIGHT QUODLIBETARIAN DEMOCRATS--ITS PRESIDENT, SECRETARY, AND PLACE OF MEETING.
In the autumn of 1839, the Hon. Middleton Flam was again our candidate for Congress. He was opposed by the celebrated John Smith, of Thorough Blue. This contest was marked by one conspicuous feature: we had completely succeeded in appropriating to our party the name of Democrats--at least we had labored very hard to do so;--our next move was to get up the old hue and cry of Federalism against the Whigs. This required great boldness; but Middleton Flam entered upon the endeavor with the intrepidity of a hero. Eliphalet Fox walked in his footsteps, and from all quarters, simultaneously, and by a well-managed concert, the cry of Federalist was poured forth upon our opponents; and Henry Clay especially--as we counted on him for the Presidential candidate--was proved to be tainted with Federalism beyond all hope of bleaching it out.
We had now two great points settled with reference to the canvass for the Presidency: the Whig candidate was to be brought into disgrace, first, as an Abolitionist, and, secondly, as a Federalist. Mr. Flam gave our club every assurance that these two charges combined would destroy the purest man that ever lived; and that it was only necessary to drive these spikes with a sledgehammer every day, and the Democracy in the end could not fail to believe in the existence and in the enormity of these offenses, no matter who should be brought out by the Whigs--whether Scott, Clay, Harrison, or Webster.
But we had pretty conclusively made up our minds that Clay was to be the man; and our club in consequence immediately set about procuring the materials for a biography of that statesman, designed to demonstrate that he had all his life been a Hartford Conventionist in sentiment, and an unsparing enemy of Southern institutions. This task was consigned to Eliphalet Fox, who very soon amassed a wonderful amount of matter exactly to our purpose. In this, Eliphalet gave evidence of his usual skill; and his facts were so contrived that they might be used with equal success against either of the four above named, or indeed any one else who might be brought forward: but as Eliphalet had a particular hatred for Mr. Clay, and was more accustomed to defame him than any other great man in the nation, the compilation was imbued with a spirit that would have been much more effective in breaking down Mr. Clay's reputation than that of either of the others.
Great was the sensation produced in Quodlibet, great was our mortification, and great our surprise upon receiving the news in December from Harrisburg. The convention actually passed by Mr. Clay, passed by the great claims of Scott and Webster, and brought out General William Henry Harrison, together with John Tyler for the Vice-Presidency;--thus, by a perversity which, on all important occasions, distinguishes the Whigs, putting the two old horses of 1836 upon the course.
Mr. Flam was now at Washington. Our club met and immediately opened a correspondence with him for advice. "Keep your eye on the Globe,"
was his first admonition. His second was, "Open upon Harrison your Abolition batteries;--swear that the nomination was procured by Garrison;--charge Tyler with being a slaveholder, and send that off to New Hampshire;--prove that Harrison was a stark Federalist by accepting an ensigncy from the hands of Washington;--but, above all, turn him into derision for his poverty and plain habits."
It was wonderful to see the zeal with which Quodlibet set about the task assigned to it by its distinguished counselor. Eliphalet Fox, with a degree of magnanimity uncommon in an editor, took the field in behalf of Mr. Clay. "That persecuted patriot," said he, "who deserved more of his party than any man in the nation, has been treated with absolute contempt. It was due to his great claims to offer him the Presidency; but the spirit of abolition swayed this factious convention, and Mr.
Clay was rejected solely on account of his well-known and deep-rooted attachment to the slave-holding interests of the South. As to General Harrison," the same article continued, "his humble station as the clerk of a county court, his insignificance and poverty, will leave the Democrats but little to overcome. Well has an enlightened and patriotic contemporary press, a distinguished pillar of the New Lights, remarked, in reference to the habits of General Harrison's life and the lowness of his associations, that two thousand dollars a year, a LOG CABIN, and a barrel of HARD CIDER would induce him to resign all claims to the honors his inconsiderate friends have proffered him."
The same paper propounded a series of interrogatories skillfully addressed to John Tyler, inquiring of him--what number of slaves he employed on his plantation, what was the ratio of their increase in each year, and how many he had disposed of at various intervals to Southern traders:--which interrogatories were admirably drawn up in language so equivocal in its import as to infer, what it did not directly assert, an extensive traffic in a commodity which could not but excite great indignation against him among the large mass of voters of all sides in the North.
How beautiful are these evidences of the operation of our New-Light philosophy! What a master in this science is the unrivaled Eliphalet Fox!
It was soon discovered that our club had fallen into a slight mistake touching the Log Cabin and Hard Cider, and the charge of poverty brought against General Harrison. The audacious Whigs had even the effrontery to adopt the LOG CABIN and HARD CIDER as the emblem of their party, and to ask the aid of those whom we had inconsiderately derided for living in those humble cabins and using this cheap luxury of cider, to make war against our New-Light Democracy. The Log Cabin instantly became the representative of a sentiment and a word of power; and, in a perfect tornado of enthusiasm, was raised in every village, hamlet, and meeting ground in the land.
Truly did this sudden upraising of the emblem strike dismay into our ranks! Quid consilii capiemus? was our universal question in Quodlibet.
What should we do? Recourse was had to Mr. Flam. "Drop," said that ready-witted man in reply, "the charge of poverty against Harrison: say he is rolling in wealth. Bring out your Federalism against him with new vigor. Call the Log Cabin banner senseless mummery--and declare your disgust against it, as lowering the tone of public sentiment and morals.
If that doesn't do, get some New-Light Democratic preacher to say that Hard Cider produces more intoxication than all the liquors the Democrats ever drank: let him rail against Whig meetings as Hard Cider orgies--remember the word;--and if we can only identify the New-Light Democracy with Temperance, its twin sister, we shall produce an unheard-of effect. Meantime, ply the Abolition battery with all possible diligence--and vamp up anew that old charge of hiring out criminals to service; but be careful to make no mistake--describe it as 'selling poor white men into slavery for debt.' To prove that Harrison is _against_ slavery and at the same time _in favor_ of it, will be a most happy stroke of our New-Light Quodlibetarian philosophy. Don't fail to do this with all possible industry. Tell Eliphalet Fox that the endeavor is worthy of his genius, and if he ever expects to become a great man, now is the opportunity presented to him."
These counsels gave us great encouragement, and we set ourselves to work in earnest. The New-Light Club was confined in its operations to the Borough of Quodlibet. Our whole Congressional district, including Thorough Blue, Tumbledown, and Bickerbray, required the supervision of a body which might be organized to regulate the affairs of the canvass within that limit. This gave rise to the Central Committee. A convention was called to meet in Quodlibet, where every portion of the district should be represented. That convention resulted in the appointment of a Committee of Twelve of the staunchest and most active of the New Lights.
It was called "The Grand Central Committee of Unflinching New-Light Quodlibetarian Democrats." The name was sonorous, euphonious, and, in a certain sense, magnificent--but being too long for ordinary use, we reduced it for working purposes to "The Great New-Light Democratic Central Committee of Quodlibet." Eliphalet Fox was made President; and the humble author of these chronicles, in consideration of his fidelity in the discharge of his duty to the New-Light Club, was chosen to be Secretary also of the committee--an honor which, with due reverence and thankfulness, he hath assumed.
From the date of its organization, the committee, a majority whereof are inhabitants of Quodlibet, meet once a week with most commendable punctuality, and, as we have reason to believe, with signal usefulness to the glorious cause in which we have embarked. Zachary Younghusband, who is a member, gratuitously and generously, out of his mere zeal in the cause, proffered the use of his room up stairs above the tin-plate workshop, for our sessions--an offer which we were reluctantly obliged to decline, after one trial, on account of the noise created by the workmen below. I mention this praiseworthy offer as due to Zachary, in favor of whom the committee passed a vote of thanks. We found a more quiet place of meeting in the back room of the cabinet store of Isaiah Crape, the Undertaker, for which we agreed to pay fifty cents a week and find our own lights. In this secluded spot much is done to shape and direct the destinies of this Great Republic.
CHAPTER XVIII.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE GRAND CENTRAL COMMITTEE--VINDICATION OF THE SEVERITY PRACTICED AGAINST GENERAL HARRISON--TACTICS OF THE NEW LIGHTS--ABOLITIONISM--SELLING WHITE MEN FOR DEBT--HARRISON A COWARD--CONSIDERATIONS WHICH LED TO THE NAMING OF THE OPPOSITION BRITISH WHIGS--STRATAGEM AGAINST HARRISON, AND THE CLAMOR AGAINST HIM FOR NOT ANSWERING--HOPE OF THE NEW LIGHTS CONFIRMED BY THE CONNECTICUT, RHODE ISLAND, AND VIRGINIA ELECTIONS--BALTIMORE CONVENTION A FAILURE--IMPORTANT LETTER FROM MR. FLAM--AMOS KENDALL'S PURPOSE TO RESIGN--EXCITEMENT OF COMPOSITION PRESCRIBED BY HIS PHYSICIAN--CENTRAL COMMITTEE SANCTION THE COMPILATION OF THESE ANNALS.
The Grand Central Committee having been thus happily organized, devoted itself with exemplary diligence to the important concerns of the Presidential election, which, from this time forth, became the engrossing subject of all men's thoughts. A volume would not suffice to develop the multifarious labors of the committee. I could not in less space recount the resolutions, with long argumentative preambles, linking by means of Whereases, like rings, whole newspaper loads of facts, invented for the purpose;--the addresses, the speeches copied from the Globe, and extracts from private letters--to say nothing of the paragraphs, the sole offspring of editorial brains, and all the other machinery employed by the committee to defame, traduce, and vilify General Harrison, for the unpardonable sin of being thought by the Whigs a fit man to preside over this vast Republic. It was our duty to render, if possible, his very name offensive in the nostrils of the people. In this endeavor it may easily be imagined that we found abundance to do in rummaging up old scraps of history, the falsification of public records, the oblique interpretation of equivocal laws, and in practicing all the other customary arts of warfare known to the New-Light tactics.
Admirable is that wisdom of the New Democracy which has provided such an ordeal of punishment for the man who, in opposition to their wishes, dares to make claim to the favor of the people. What better chastisement can be inflicted upon such rash aspirant, than this preliminary gauntlet which it is ordained for him to run before he can be made sensible of the insolence of his pretensions? Thrice tormented is it his lot to be, in the fiery furnace of hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, before he shall see the end of his vain probation. As certain tribes of Indians have a custom of torturing, to the verge of stoutest human endurance, the candidate for the honor of being accounted a Brave; so in imitation of this commendable usage did we determine, in no less degree, to torture the man whom the hardihood of the Whigs had placed before the nation for the like empty and unavailing honor.
It did truly seem to the New Lights no small insolence of those men who call themselves Whigs, to propose any individual for the Presidency, while the people were already favored with a chief whose whole life was lustrous with the radiance of the Quodlibetarian Democracy. The very idea of a New Light presupposes an innate, inherent, and intuitive fitness to fill any station of any kind or degree whatever; and here was one distinguished as the very fountain of New-Light principles already at the head of the nation, dispensing the favors and wielding the power of his great office to the supreme content of all Quodlibetarians--the only persons in this Republic whose interests deserve to be held of any account in the concerns of government. Nothing but the rankest faction could originate an opposition to his beneficent administration. Acting upon this conviction, the Central Committee certainly did not spare General Harrison.
It was, however, soon perceived that the General was a little stronger with the people than we supposed him to be; and sundry were the changes to which we were consequently obliged to resort in our mode of attack.
The _abolitionism_ we never lost sight of: the _selling of white men into slavery for debt_ was also a steady topic; and some of the more ingenious of the committee fell upon the device of proving the old General _a coward_: but our great effort was to convert him and all his friends into old Blue-Light _Federalists_. This was always considered our master-stroke; and I may appeal to all the New-Light papers of this day for evidence, that in that department of our labors we plied our task with an industry that has never been surpassed. The Jersey election, also, we turned to great account in Congress, and certainly blew our trumpet on that question both loud and long. It was a noble illustration of our zeal for State Rights, which all the world knows is one of the favorite articles in our present faith. With an eye to this same question of State Rights, we succeeded in getting up a tolerable good commotion in Congress on the subject of State debts; holding it our duty, as friends of the sovereignty of the States, to do all in our power to break down their credit, and to warn the world against placing any confidence in their pledges--although, upon this subject, I am bound to confess that our success has not answered our expectations.
There was one movement upon which our committee placed great reliance.
Mr. Van Buren, and indeed the whole New-Light Democracy, had so often changed their course upon public measures, as I have already shown, that the nation had been by degrees brought into a belief that every public man was, of necessity, and from the very nature of his organization, bound to certify, at least once a year, the state of his principles and the character of his opinions on all questions of policy whatever. Now Mr. Van Buren, in 1836, came to the Presidency upon a very summary, and to himself, very comfortable profession of faith. All that he professed at that time was to follow in the footsteps--which said footsteps had scope and variation enough to allow him to take any path he thought proper. General Harrison, in that contest of 1836, did not enjoy this advantage, but was compelled to be somewhat specific in the indication of the grounds upon which his election claimed to be based. He had, consequently, not only been very full in this exposition, but had likewise referred his interrogators to a vast amount of written and printed opinions, which on divers occasions, in the course of his public career, he had found reason to express.
In the present canvass it was determined by our committee, and in fact by our New-Light friends in general, that he should reiterate afresh everything he had ever said or written on public matters, and that we should, by no means, be content with mere references to past declarations. Indeed, it seemed to our New-Light Democracy that, inasmuch as _our_ President kept no opinions more than three years old, at the outside, it was impossible that General Harrison could be so antiquated as to stick to his for a longer term. Confiding in this impression, plans were laid by the New Lights to write letters to the General in the guise of friends, and in case he should refer the querists to his former expositions, without full and ample repetition of all he had said before, to bring a whirlwind of indignant reproof about his ears as a man who was afraid to trust the public with his sentiments. This stratagem succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectation of the New Lights. The General was caught in the trap; and such a clamor as was raised has never before been known in any part of the world.
"He won't answer questions!" exclaimed the Globe. "Gracious Heaven! what an insult to the intelligence of a nation of vigilant, truth-seeking, anxiously-inquiring freemen! A silent candidate! What contumely to the people! What contempt of the fundamental principles of free government!"
"Gracious Heaven! what contempt of the people!" re-echoed the Quodlibet Whole Team.
"Gracious Heaven! what contumely!" shouted the Bickerbray Scrutinizer.
"Gracious Heaven!" etc. etc., ejaculated two thousand patriotic, disciplined, footstep-following papers of all dimensions, from six by twelve to three feet square, from one end of the Union to the other.
Never was there such a Gracious Heavening carried on in this country!
In the midst of all this successively came on the Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Virginia elections. The results everybody knows. Although ostensibly and to outward appearance against us, we saw in them what our infatuated opponents could not see, the certain token of our success. It was evident to us, from the returns of these elections, that a great reaction must occur; and Mr. Doubleday now very sagely remarked, "that there was no longer room to doubt that we should beat the Whigs in the fall." But the Whigs, instead of desponding at these events, began to take heart, and straightway set about getting up a Convention in Baltimore. Well, that convention was held on the Fourth of May. I was present, and I pronounce it to have been a _thorough failure_. The Whigs have represented that at least twenty thousand persons were assembled on that occasion. According to the accurate system of computation adopted by the New Lights, and which is infallible in regard to the numbers attending Whig meetings, the whole assemblage, including boys and blacks, did not quite reach two thousand, and of those a large number were New Lights.
Still it is due to truth that I should say there were some timid men in our committee who were not altogether satisfied with the appearances of the day. We found it difficult to make them comprehend how the late elections had operated in our favor. Yet it is a fact that we never were thoroughly convinced of the _certainty_ of our success until we saw the returns in these elections. Connecticut and Rhode Island we had before considered doubtful: we now had no doubt. And as to Virginia, we became at once fully persuaded that our success there was actually "brilliant:"--such is the beautiful operation of the New-Light philosophy in bringing consolation to its votaries under apparent disaster, and suggesting encouragement where others would despond.
Yet it must not be concealed that these incidents produced some slight sensation in our committee. Mr. Flam wrote from Washington a letter of grave reflection. "Although," said he, "our success in Virginia has transcended our expectations, yet we are not quite certain that our _abolition_ battery has been altogether _very effective_. Indeed, it is questioned here whether it would not be as well to abandon it, and even point the guns in the opposite direction. _Martin has room enough yet to turn_--and, as it is rather manifest that Virginia considers our charge of abolitionism against Harrison a _humbug_, and as the whole South will probably fall into the same opinion, (in which, in my judgment, they would not be very far wrong,) the propriety of taking the opposite ground is well worthy of consideration. _Van's affinities are with the North_; so that if it can be made clearly to appear to be his interest to take this backward leap, his _Southern principles_ are not yet more than cobwebs in his way. _We must think of this._ In the mean time, it is the desire of the President and his managing friends here that you not only continue to brand the opposition as _Federalists_, but call them BRITISH WHIGS. This is rendered necessary by the fact that the opposition have just discovered that Van Buren voted against Madison and the War, and supported Clinton and the Peace party. By anticipating the ground and charging the Whigs as under British influence, we shall take off the edge of this assault, and avoid the effect of another reminiscence against the President--I mean his instructions to M'Lane, on the West India Question, which the Whigs impute to him as a truckling to Great Britain. Besides this, you know, Martin has been very assiduous of late in courting the good opinion of Victoria--so, by all means, drive at THE BRITISH WHIGS! Keep your eye upon Amos Kendall, who has consented to act as fugleman. His health is so much shattered by the diseases of the Post-office, that he is compelled to retire; and as his physician prescribes 'the excitement of composition' as his only cure, he is about to devote himself to the Extra Globe, in which sheet he will be able to indulge his imagination in the creation of those chaste and prurient fancies for which he has been remarkable from a child. The pure and simple inventions of that paper are ass's milk to his wasted constitution."