The healthy, strong, and bold, cherishes them, and is
formed a whig by nature. On the eclipse of federalism with us, although
not its extinction, its leaders got up the Missouri question, under the
false front of lessening the measure of slavery, but with the real view
of producing a geographical division of parties, which might insure
them the next President. The people of the north went blindfold into the
snare, followed their leaders for a while with a zeal truly moral and
laudable, until they became sensible that they were injuring instead of
aiding the real interests of the slaves, that they had been used, merely
as tools for electioneering purposes; and that trick of hypocrisy then
fell as quickly as it had been got up. To that is now succeeding a
distinction, which, like that of republican and federal, or whig and
tory, being equally intermixed through every State, threatens none of
those geographical schisms which go immediately to a separation. The
line of division now is the preservation of State rights as reserved in
the constitution, or by strained constructions of that instrument,
to merge all into a consolidated government. The tories are for
strengthening the executive and General Government; the whigs cherish
the representative branch, and the rights reserved by the States, as the
bulwark against consolidation, which must immediately generate monarchy.
And although this division excites, as yet, no warmth, yet it exists,
is well understood, and will be a principle of voting at the ensuing
election, with the reflecting men of both parties.
Pages:
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650