government, organized with a view to permanence, so as to make it the primary duty of the citizen to support them, are fraught with the greatest danger to liberty. They are contrivances to override the constitution, and to enable a minority to rule the majority. They are machines constructed for the express purpose of centralizing power, for the express benefit of the intriguing politicians, who, by getting hold of the crank, may work then as they please. The only parties really defensible in a free government, are such as naturally and spontaneously spring up, and group themselves around different views of governmental policy. These come when they should, last as long as the difference of policy lasts, and then dissolve of themselves. They come, accomplish their object, and disappear.

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But having determined that all is to be done by and through party, and that our primary duty is to labor for the organization and ascendency of our party, the next thing to be insisted on is, Fidelity to the party, and strict adherence to its usagés, the surrender of all individual opinions, convictions, and preferences, to the decision of the party, which decision, be it understood, is always to be effected by the aforesaid politicians who have hold of the crank. This throws the whole business into the hands of central committees, and deprives the great mass of the citizens of all free voice in the determination of measures, or in the selection of candidates. These committees, often selfconstituted, or, if not, chosen by a feeble minority, arrange every thing, and leave to the citizens at large, or to the great mass of the party, nothing to do, but to accept their arrangements, and support their nominations, or to assume the responsibility of throwing the government into the hands of the opposing party.

To keep the ranks of the party full, to prevent members from breaking away and asserting their independence, appeals are now made to the lowest and most corrupting passions of the human heart. The individual, who shows himself a little uneasy, or disposed to kick at the party traces, must be denounced, thrown over, and declared to be an enemy, and no longer enti

tled to the confidence of the party. Thus men must be kept in the party, and faithful to its usages, decisions, and nominations, not by attachment to its principles and measures, but through fear, that, if they assert their independence, they will lose their share of "the spoils."

Now, fasten this doctrine on the country, and let it become our settled mode of disposing of all political matters, and our liberties, and the whole action of the government, will be at the mercy of the sly, cunning, adroit, intriguing, selfish demagogues, whom our country, as we have seen, has a direct and strong tendency to multiply.

And here, we must be permitted to say, is a strong reason why the American people should pause and deliberate long, before restoring Mr. Van Buren to the high office from which, in 1840, they so indignantly ejected him. It cannot be denied, that Mr. Van Buren is the most conspicuous representative of this system of party management, in the country. The system itself has been perfected, and to no inconsiderable extent was founded, by him and his more immediate political associates. He is intimately connected with it; owes to it all the political elevation he has ever received, and relies on it alone for his restoration to the presidency. He has no hope but in its influence; his restoration would, therefore, be a direct sanction of the system by the American people, and go far towards fastening it upon the country beyond the reach of future redress. In this view of the case, the reelection of Mr. Van Buren, whatever his personal worth, would be a dangerous precedent, and a most serious public calamity.

In 1840, such was the state of certain great public questions, and such Mr. Van Buren's position, that all those of us, who felt deeply the importance of completing the financial policy commenced under his administration, were obliged either to vote for him, or to vote against our principles. But there is no necessity of driving us again to this severe alternative. More

over, his defeat was not an unmixed evil, for it was not wholly owing to the opposition of the American people to the leading measures, or rather measure, — for it had but one, of his administration; but, to no inconsiderable extent, to the obnoxious system of party management he represented." We are not sure but the determination to get rid of that system the caucus system had as much to do in effecting his defeat, as opposition to the Independent Treasury. Men had grown weary of party tyranny, and disgusted with its machinery. That this gave to the Opposition no little of their strength is pretty clearly evinced by the fact, that no sooner were Mr. Van Buren and his caucus system believed to be out of the way, than the Republican party was stronger than ever. State after State returned, and gave their votes for the principles and measures of government, they had persisted, under him and his tactics, in voting down. The whole party, throughout the Union, gave a sudden spring, as if freed from some superincumbent weight, which had hitherto pressed it to the earth, and prevented all free movement. It was a general jubilee; and men seemed to say, republican principles can have a free development, and a certain triumph."

"Now

Considerate men, who had stood by Mr. Van Buren, and made no inconsiderable sacrifices to sustain him, felt, after all, that his defeat had its good side, in that it might tend to break up the old party organization, demolish its machinery, and leave men a measure of freedom to labor for the public good. They felt that all was not lost; nay, that the gain might possibly, in the long run, overbalance the loss. Mr. Van Buren, they felt, was out of the way; and this, in itself, was no trifling gain. Hope sprang up afresh, and, in the buoyancy of their hearts, they were disposed to treat him. with all tenderness, to tread lightly on his faults, to forget the injuries he had inflicted on the Republican cause, and to magnify, as much as possible, his virtues. and publie services. His defeat softened prejudice and disarmed hostility, and all were disposed to follow him

to private life with marked respect, if not with gratitude. They felt, that, since he was no longer in the field, the disasters of the campaign could be easily repaired; and that the Republican forces, marshalled again, under new leaders, with fresh hopes, and the natural stimulus of recently recovered freedom, would be in no danger of a future defeat. There was reason and justice in all this. But the reappearance of Mr. Van Buren upon the stage changes the whole aspect of affairs. He comes not alone, but as the chief of a band, which the country had devoutly hoped was dispersed, never to be collected again. He comes as the representative of the same old corrupt and corrupting system of party tactics, followed by the same swarm of greedy spoilsmen, with their appetite for plunder sharpened by the few years' abstinence they have been forced, through the remains of the original virtue and patriotism of the country, to practise. Gratify his wishes, restore him to the place he is personally soliciting, and we lose all that was good in the defeat of the Republican party in 1840, and retain only the evil. We restore, what, with an almost unheard-of effort, the country had thrown off, and place the Republican party in the condition in which it must be defeated again, or the country be inevitably ruined.

These are, no doubt, hard things to be said of a man who has once filled the high office of president of these United States; but, if Mr. Van Buren had been at all worthy of that high office, they never would have been said; for he would, on his defeat, have retired, and remained thenceforth in private life. The fact, that he is now before the public, soliciting to be restored to that office from which the country ejected him. with indignation and disgust, is a proof of his moral unfitness for the place to which he aspires, and of the justice and wisdom of the people in ejecting him. He loses all the sympathy his defeat excited, forfeits all the respect with which generous hearts always follow the fallen, and all the sacredness that ordinarily belongs to those who have filled high office. He stands before us,

simply as an aspirant for the highest honor in the gift of the American people, and not an aspirant relying on his own personal merits and eminent public services, but on a system of party tactics and caucus machinery, which cannot be countenanced for a moment, without the most serious detriment to liberty, and the grossest indignity to civic virtue. Under these circumstances, he must expect to have hard things said of him, at least hard things to be thought of him, by every man capable of distinguishing between the virtues of the citizen and the virtues of the partisan. He voluntarily provokes the severest censure from every enlightened friend of his country, and of her republican institutions. It is too much to ask us to restore the old caucus system, the old party machinery, and reinstate all the old drill sergeants, by whose means our liberties have been jeoparded, and our Republic brought to the very edge of the precipice. It is too much to expect us quietly, now after so much has been done, to clear the onward path of republicanism; now after Providence has so signally intervened in our favor against those who had for so long a time provoked its indignation, to replace the old impediments swept away by the whirlwind of 1840, by rallying again around the very man, who, of all others in the Union, relies most on these very impediments for success, and who cannot be ignorant, that, if it were not for the party contrivances which stifle the free voice of the people, he would never be solicited to leave, even for a moment, the classic shades of Lindenwold.

We have spoken of the peculiar dangers to which institutions like ours are exposed. These dangers are great and threatening; they have already acquired an alarming force, and seem almost ready to break upon us with overwhelming fury; but we do not look upon them as inevitable, or irremediable. We may guard against them, and shelter ourselves almost, if not wholly, against all ill consequences. But our protection against them is in the virtue of the people, in their