Address to the People of Illinois.
FELLOW-CITIZENS:—By a resolution of a meeting of such of the Whigs of
the State as are now at Springfield, we, the undersigned, were appointed
to prepare an address to you. The performance of that task we now
undertake.
Several resolutions were adopted by the meeting; and the chief object of
this address is to show briefly the reasons for their adoption.
The first of those resolutions declares a tariff of duties upon foreign
importations, producing sufficient revenue for the support of the
General Government, and so adjusted as to protect American industry, to
be indispensably necessary to the prosperity of the American people;
and the second declares direct taxation for a national revenue to
be improper. Those two resolutions are kindred in their nature, and
therefore proper and convenient to be considered together. The question
of protection is a subject entirely too broad to be crowded into a
few pages only, together with several other subjects. On that point we
therefore content ourselves with giving the following extracts from
the writings of Mr. Jefferson, General Jackson, and the speech of Mr.
Calhoun:
“To be independent for the comforts of life, we must fabricate them
ourselves. We must now place the manufacturer by the side of the
agriculturalist. The grand inquiry now is, Shall we make our own
comforts, or go without them at the will of a foreign nation? He,
therefore, who is now against domestic manufactures must be for reducing
us either to dependence on that foreign nation, or to be clothed in
skins and to live like wild beasts in dens and caverns. I am not one of
those; experience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary
to our independence as to our comfort.” Letter of Mr. Jefferson to
Benjamin Austin.
“I ask, What is the real situation of the agriculturalist? Where has the
American farmer a market for his surplus produce? Except for cotton, he
has neither a foreign nor a home market. Does not this clearly prove,
when there is no market at home or abroad, that there [is] too much
labor employed in agriculture? Common sense at once points out the
remedy. Take from agriculture six hundred thousand men, women, and
children, and you will at once give a market for more breadstuffs than
all Europe now furnishes. In short, we have been too long subject to the
policy of British merchants. It is time we should become a little
more Americanized, and instead of feeding the paupers and laborers
of England, feed our own; or else in a short time, by continuing our
present policy, we shall all be rendered paupers ourselves.”—General
Jackson’s Letter to Dr. Coleman.
“When our manufactures are grown to a certain perfection, as they soon
will be, under the fostering care of government, the farmer will find
a ready market for his surplus produce, and—what is of equal
consequence—a certain and cheap supply of all he wants; his prosperity
will diffuse itself to every class of the community.” Speech of Hon. J.
C. Calhoun on the Tariff.
The question of revenue we will now briefly consider. For several
years past the revenues of the government have been unequal to its
expenditures, and consequently loan after loan, sometimes direct and
sometimes indirect in form, has been resorted to. By this means a
new national debt has been created, and is still growing on us with
a rapidity fearful to contemplate—a rapidity only reasonably to be
expected in time of war. This state of things has been produced by a
prevailing unwillingness either to increase the tariff or resort to
direct taxation. But the one or the other must come. Coming expenditures
must be met, and the present debt must be paid; and money cannot always
be borrowed for these objects. The system of loans is but temporary in
its nature, and must soon explode. It is a system not only ruinous while
it lasts, but one that must soon fail and leave us destitute. As an
individual who undertakes to live by borrowing soon finds his original
means devoured by interest, and, next, no one left to borrow from, so
must it be with a government.
We repeat, then, that a tariff sufficient for revenue, or a direct tax,
must soon be resorted to; and, indeed, we believe this alternative is
now denied by no one. But which system shall be adopted? Some of our
opponents, in theory, admit the propriety of a tariff sufficient for
a revenue, but even they will not in practice vote for such a tariff;
while others boldly advocate direct taxation. Inasmuch, therefore, as
some of them boldly advocate direct taxation, and all the rest—or so
nearly all as to make exceptions needless—refuse to adopt the tariff,
we think it is doing them no injustice to class them all as advocates
of direct taxation. Indeed, we believe they are only delaying an open
avowal of the system till they can assure themselves that the people
will tolerate it. Let us, then, briefly compare the two systems. The
tariff is the cheaper system, because the duties, being collected in
large parcels at a few commercial points, will require comparatively few
officers in their collection; while by the direct-tax system the land
must be literally covered with assessors and collectors, going forth
like swarms of Egyptian locusts, devouring every blade of grass and
other green thing. And, again, by the tariff system the whole revenue is
paid by the consumers of foreign goods, and those chiefly the luxuries,
and not the necessaries, of life. By this system the man who contents
himself to live upon the products of his own country pays nothing at
all. And surely that country is extensive enough, and its products
abundant and varied enough, to answer all the real wants of its people.
In short, by this system the burthen of revenue falls almost entirely on
the wealthy and luxurious few, while the substantial and laboring many
who live at home, and upon home products, go entirely free. By the
direct-tax system none can escape. However strictly the citizen may
exclude from his premises all foreign luxuries,—fine cloths, fine
silks, rich wines, golden chains, and diamond rings,—still, for
the possession of his house, his barn, and his homespun, he is to be
perpetually haunted and harassed by the tax-gatherer. With these views
we leave it to be determined whether we or our opponents are the more
truly democratic on the subject.
The third resolution declares the necessity and propriety of a national
bank. During the last fifty years so much has been said and written both
as to the constitutionality and expediency of such an institution, that
we could not hope to improve in the least on former discussions of the
subject, were we to undertake it. We, therefore, upon the question of
constitutionality content ourselves with remarking the facts that the
first national bank was established chiefly by the same men who formed
the Constitution, at a time when that instrument was but two years old,
and receiving the sanction, as President, of the immortal Washington;
that the second received the sanction, as President, of Mr. Madison,
to whom common consent has awarded the proud title of “Father of the
Constitution”; and subsequently the sanction of the Supreme Court, the
most enlightened judicial tribunal in the world. Upon the question of
expediency, we only ask you to examine the history of the times during
the existence of the two banks, and compare those times with the
miserable present.
The fourth resolution declares the expediency of Mr. Clay’s land bill.
Much incomprehensible jargon is often used against the constitutionality
of this measure. We forbear, in this place, attempting an answer to it,
simply because, in our opinion, those who urge it are through party
zeal resolved not to see or acknowledge the truth. The question of
expediency, at least so far as Illinois is concerned, seems to us the
clearest imaginable. By the bill we are to receive annually a large sum
of money, no part of which we otherwise receive. The precise annual sum
cannot be known in advance; it doubtless will vary in different years.
Still it is something to know that in the last year—a year of almost
unparalleled pecuniary pressure—it amounted to more than forty thousand
dollars. This annual income, in the midst of our almost insupportable
difficulties, in the days of our severest necessity, our political
opponents are furiously resolving to take and keep from us. And for
what? Many silly reasons are given, as is usual in cases where a single
good one is not to be found. One is that by giving us the proceeds
of the lands we impoverish the national treasury, and thereby render
necessary an increase of the tariff. This may be true; but if so, the
amount of it only is that those whose pride, whose abundance of means,
prompt them to spurn the manufactures of our country, and to strut in
British cloaks and coats and pantaloons, may have to pay a few cents
more on the yard for the cloth that makes them. A terrible evil, truly,
to the Illinois farmer, who never wore, nor ever expects to wear, a
single yard of British goods in his whole life. Another of their reasons
is that by the passage and continuance of Mr. Clay’s bill, we prevent
the passage of a bill which would give us more. This, if it were sound
in itself, is waging destructive war with the former position; for if
Mr. Clay’s bill impoverishes the treasury too much, what shall be said
of one that impoverishes it still more? But it is not sound in itself.
It is not true that Mr. Clay’s bill prevents the passage of one more
favorable to us of the new States. Considering the strength and opposite
interest of the old States, the wonder is that they ever permitted one
to pass so favorable as Mr. Clay’s. The last twenty-odd years’ efforts
to reduce the price of the lands, and to pass graduation bills and
cession bills, prove the assertion to be true; and if there were no
experience in support of it, the reason itself is plain. The States
in which none, or few, of the public lands lie, and those consequently
interested against parting with them except for the best price, are
the majority; and a moment’s reflection will show that they must ever
continue the majority, because by the time one of the original new
States (Ohio, for example) becomes populous and gets weight in Congress,
the public lands in her limits are so nearly sold out that in every
point material to this question she becomes an old State. She does not
wish the price reduced, because there is none left for her citizens
to buy; she does not wish them ceded to the States in which they lie,
because they no longer lie in her limits, and she will get nothing
by the cession. In the nature of things, the States interested in
the reduction of price, in graduation, in cession, and in all similar
projects, never can be the majority. Nor is there reason to hope that
any of them can ever succeed as a Democratic party measure, because we
have heretofore seen that party in full power, year after year,
with many of their leaders making loud professions in favor of these
projects, and yet doing nothing. What reason, then, is there to believe
they will hereafter do better? In every light in which we can view this
question, it amounts simply to this: Shall we accept our share of the
proceeds under Mr. Clay’s bill, or shall we rather reject that and get
nothing?
The fifth resolution recommends that a Whig candidate for Congress be
run in every district, regardless of the chances of success. We are
aware that it is sometimes a temporary gratification, when a friend
cannot succeed, to be able to choose between opponents; but we believe
that that gratification is the seed-time which never fails to be
followed by a most abundant harvest of bitterness. By this policy we
entangle ourselves. By voting for our opponents, such of us as do it
in some measure estop ourselves to complain of their acts, however
glaringly wrong we may believe them to be. By this policy no one portion
of our friends can ever be certain as to what course another portion
may adopt; and by this want of mutual and perfect understanding our
political identity is partially frittered away and lost. And, again,
those who are thus elected by our aid ever become our bitterest
persecutors. Take a few prominent examples. In 1830 Reynolds was elected
Governor; in 1835 we exerted our whole strength to elect Judge Young
to the United States Senate, which effort, though failing, gave him the
prominence that subsequently elected him; in 1836 General Ewing, was so
elected to the United States Senate; and yet let us ask what three men
have been more perseveringly vindictive in their assaults upon all our
men and measures than they? During the last summer the whole State
was covered with pamphlet editions of misrepresentations against us,
methodized into chapters and verses, written by two of these same
men,—Reynolds and Young, in which they did not stop at charging us with
error merely, but roundly denounced us as the designing enemies of
human liberty, itself. If it be the will of Heaven that such men shall
politically live, be it so; but never, never again permit them to draw a
particle of their sustenance from us.
The sixth resolution recommends the adoption of the convention system
for the nomination of candidates. This we believe to be of the very
first importance. Whether the system is right in itself we do not stop
to inquire; contenting ourselves with trying to show that, while our
opponents use it, it is madness in us not to defend ourselves with
it. Experience has shown that we cannot successfully defend ourselves
without it. For examples, look at the elections of last year. Our
candidate for governor, with the approbation of a large portion of the
party, took the field without a nomination, and in open opposition to
the system. Wherever in the counties the Whigs had held conventions and
nominated candidates for the Legislature, the aspirants who were not
nominated were induced to rebel against the nominations, and to become
candidates, as is said, “on their own hook.” And, go where you would
into a large Whig county, you were sure to find the Whigs not contending
shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy, but divided into
factions, and fighting furiously with one another. The election came,
and what was the result? The governor beaten, the Whig vote being
decreased many thousands since 1840, although the Democratic vote
had not increased any. Beaten almost everywhere for members of the
Legislature,—Tazewell, with her four hundred Whig majority, sending a
delegation half Democratic; Vermillion, with her five hundred, doing
the same; Coles, with her four hundred, sending two out of three; and
Morgan, with her two hundred and fifty, sending three out of four,—and
this to say nothing of the numerous other less glaring examples; the
whole winding up with the aggregate number of twenty-seven Democratic
representatives sent from Whig counties. As to the senators, too, the
result was of the same character. And it is most worthy to be remembered
that of all the Whigs in the State who ran against the regular nominees,
a single one only was elected. Although they succeeded in defeating
the nominees almost by scores, they too were defeated, and the spoils
chucklingly borne off by the common enemy.
We do not mention the fact of many of the Whigs opposing the convention
system heretofore for the purpose of censuring them. Far from it.
We expressly protest against such a conclusion. We know they were
generally, perhaps universally, as good and true Whigs as we ourselves
claim to be.
We mention it merely to draw attention to the disastrous result it
produced, as an example forever hereafter to be avoided. That “union is
strength” is a truth that has been known, illustrated, and declared in
various ways and forms in all ages of the world. That great fabulist and
philosopher Aesop illustrated it by his fable of the bundle of sticks;
and he whose wisdom surpasses that of all philosophers has declared
that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” It is to induce our
friends to act upon this important and universally acknowledged truth
that we urge the adoption of the convention system. Reflection will
prove that there is no other way of practically applying it. In its
application we know there will be incidents temporarily painful; but,
after all, those incidents will be fewer and less intense with than
without the system. If two friends aspire to the same office it is
certain that both cannot succeed. Would it not, then, be much less
painful to have the question decided by mutual friends some time before,
than to snarl and quarrel until the day of election, and then both be
beaten by the common enemy?
Before leaving this subject, we think proper to remark that we do not
understand the resolution as intended to recommend the application of
the convention system to the nomination of candidates for the small
offices no way connected with politics; though we must say we do not
perceive that such an application of it would be wrong.
The seventh resolution recommends the holding of district conventions
in May next, for the purpose of nominating candidates for Congress. The
propriety of this rests upon the same reasons with that of the sixth,
and therefore needs no further discussion.
The eighth and ninth also relate merely to the practical application of
the foregoing, and therefore need no discussion.
Before closing, permit us to add a few reflections on the present
condition and future prospects of the Whig party. In almost all the
States we have fallen into the minority, and despondency seems to
prevail universally among us. Is there just cause for this? In 1840 we
carried the nation by more than a hundred and forty thousand majority.
Our opponents charged that we did it by fraudulent voting; but whatever
they may have believed, we know the charge to be untrue. Where, now, is
that mighty host? Have they gone over to the enemy? Let the results of
the late elections answer. Every State which has fallen off from the
Whig cause since 1840 has done so not by giving more Democratic votes
than they did then, but by giving fewer Whig. Bouck, who was elected
Democratic Governor of New York last fall by more than 15,000 majority,
had not then as many votes as he had in 1840, when he was beaten by
seven or eight thousand. And so has it been in all the other States
which have fallen away from our cause. From this it is evident that tens
of thousands in the late elections have not voted at all. Who and what
are they? is an important question, as respects the future. They can
come forward and give us the victory again. That all, or nearly all, of
them are Whigs is most apparent. Our opponents, stung to madness by
the defeat of 1840, have ever since rallied with more than their usual
unanimity. It has not been they that have been kept from the polls.
These facts show what the result must be, once the people again rally
in their entire strength. Proclaim these facts, and predict this result;
and although unthinking opponents may smile at us, the sagacious ones
will “believe and tremble.” And why shall the Whigs not all rally again?
Are their principles less dear now than in 1840? Have any of their
doctrines since then been discovered to be untrue? It is true, the
victory of 1840 did not produce the happy results anticipated; but it
is equally true, as we believe, that the unfortunate death of General
Harrison was the cause of the failure. It was not the election of
General Harrison that was expected to produce happy effects, but the
measures to be adopted by his administration. By means of his death,
and the unexpected course of his successor, those measures were never
adopted. How could the fruits follow? The consequences we always
predicted would follow the failure of those measures have followed, and
are now upon us in all their horrors. By the course of Mr. Tyler the
policy of our opponents has continued in operation, still leaving them
with the advantage of charging all its evils upon us as the results of
a Whig administration. Let none be deceived by this somewhat plausible,
though entirely false charge. If they ask us for the sufficient and
sound currency we promised, let them be answered that we only promised
it through the medium of a national bank, which they, aided by Mr.
Tyler, prevented our establishing. And let them be reminded, too, that
their own policy in relation to the currency has all the time been, and
still is, in full operation. Let us then again come forth in our might,
and by a second victory accomplish that which death prevented in the
first. We can do it. When did the Whigs ever fail if they were fully
aroused and united? Even in single States, under such circumstances,
defeat seldom overtakes them. Call to mind the contested elections
within the last few years, and particularly those of Moore and Letcher
from Kentucky, Newland and Graham from North Carolina, and the famous
New Jersey case. In all these districts Locofocoism had stalked
omnipotent before; but when the whole people were aroused by its
enormities on those occasions, they put it down, never to rise again.
We declare it to be our solemn conviction, that the Whigs are always a
majority of this nation; and that to make them always successful needs
but to get them all to the polls and to vote unitedly. This is the great
desideratum. Let us make every effort to attain it. At every election,
let every Whig act as though he knew the result to depend upon his
action. In the great contest of 1840 some more than twenty one hundred
thousand votes were cast, and so surely as there shall be that many,
with the ordinary increase added, cast in 1844 that surely will a Whig
be elected President of the United States.