pellations we have only to express our regret that their zeal for our injury has resulted in such slight success. We intend to conduct this journal for the benefit of the Whig party, and we hope with profit to all intelligent and sound-judging men; and those who do not believe in the utility of such a course will do us a real and signal service by persevering in their attacks. We have no apology to offer for this brief statement with reference to the policy of the Review.

We return to the difficulties which appeared to beset the Convention. As the time for the assembling of that body drew near, the troubles did not diminish. The peculiar position of one of the candidates-a position now explained, and indeed relieved of all its embarrassment by the preliminary action of the Convention-was the text on which a great deal of argument was set forth by the different wings of the Whig party.

The opposition to General Scott was of a nature easily explained. In his own view it was an act of political impropriety to give any written pledges of future action before called upon to do so by a nomination to that position which should make action necessary. With a reputation for high and steadfast integrity, for untiring devotion to his country as manifested in many a long and hard campaign of his soldier life, and with the profoundest assurance that not one word of all that he had ever said or written could be quoted to show that he was not keenly and constantly alive to the interests of the entire nation-with this reputation and conviction, he felt himself, as an individual, under no obligations to give pledges until the time should come when to give the pledge and to maintain it before the people would be one and the same thing.

In private letters and in conversation no reservation has been expressed by General Scott as to his views on national policy, or on that framework of concession which grew out of the joint labor of the wisest statesmen in the Congress of 1850. In his own judgment, therefore, it was unnecessary to affix any further seal to the chart on which was inscribed his love for his country. In the event of his nomination he foresaw a necessity which did not, in his estimation, previously exist. To any resolutions submitted by a majority of the party he professed himself most cheerfully willing to subscribe. It became a matter of opinion with him whe

ther he should or should not publish an explicit profession of his doctrine previous to his nomination, as the rule by which his actions should be gauged; and as a matter of opinion it should be estimated.

Nor was it argued in any other light. Those who have carefully read the eloquent debates and there are few who have not-made on the floor of Congress by the members of the two disputing Southern parties, of whom Messrs. Gentry and Stanly may severally be taken as the representatives, will recollect that those who opposed the nomination of General Scott opposed him, not because he had ever shown himself hostile to the Union or the measures of 1850, but simply because, in a crisis like the present campaign, it was better to adopt a candidate whose soundness could not be by any possibility assailed, than to select one against whom the arrows of the enemy could be more easily directed. Further than this the argument was not carried. The personal preferences of a large body were with other candidates. Against such preferences no one objects, or has a right to object. But had it been foreseen before the Convention that the resolutions there adopted by a triumphant majority would have been adopted so easily and by so large a preponderance of votes, the argument against General Scott would have dwarfed at once into a personal preference for other candidates, such a pre-" ference as is at any time capable of being" merged in the will of the majority.

The resolutions passed by the Convention preliminary to the balloting for candidates did indeed place them all on a similar footing. But as these resolutions did not abate personal preferences, so they could not at once® remove those apprehensions which had been so long suffered to affiliate with them that both seemed to share the same texture When a body of men have entertained opin ions for weeks or months, and have spent much time in arguing them, they can by no process be at once delivered from them. It a single individual cannot change his opinions at once, it is infinitely more difficult for a consolidated body. There is a feeling of association, of pride in preserving a common bond of sentiment, of unwillingness in the case of each to yield before the rest, that goes very far towards perpetuating for a time any opinion or set of opinions formned by a group of intelligent and conspicuous men.

But if our opponents imagine that the opposition expressed by Southern Whigs to General Scott's nomination before the Convention is not now removed by the removal of its cause, they are most egregiously at fault, and are counting on finding the weakness of disorganization where they will find all the power of united and determined action. The resolutions of the Whig Convention are at once explicit and national. The candidate who is nominated by that Convention endorses, in his acceptance of the nomination, the entire series of the resolutions. In coming before the people, he only appears in the attitude of a national candidate, who if elected will swear with the just solemnity of a Presidential inauguration "TO STAND BY THE CONSTITUTION," and whose after course will manifest the sincerity of his vow, as it will be consistent with all his previous life.

And now, while on the subject of the candidate, we wish to say a word relative to the course which this Review has pursued with reference to General Scott. We have not considered ourselves disqualified from having a preference in the matter of a Presidential candidate. The most remote and insignificant newspaper of the country is free to express its preference, and generally claims the honor of the Presidency for some individual within the limits of the State. We, of course, are influenced by no such local prejudice, and regard principally the statesmanlike qualities by which a man is fitted for that high office. Looking mainly at superiority n these qualifications, we have an indispuable claim to such a preference as we can Express without disparaging the services of >thers-such a preference in short as any telligent citizen feels himself at perfect perty to entertain and freely make known. . Our first choice therefore was not General cott. Had we acted from selfish policy, othing would have been more natural than o have made the Review a decided Scott ournal, since its circulation is very much arger in the States whose votes were reently cast for Scott than in those whose otes were cast for the other candidates. There are few who will deny that the chances f General Scott for the Presidential nomiation have all along been better than those f the Secretary of State, or the present acumbent of the Presidential office. By suporting him, therefore, or by ignoring other

candidates, we should have been in the right way to prove our political sagacity, and perhaps might have got up a reputation for President-making that would not have been at all unflattering. But these considerations were of no moment in comparison with the duty which we felt was owing to that man with whose name American greatness will always be associated, and who, we are proud to think, will not be forgotten so long as the noblest qualities of the statesman and the orator shall command the admiration of mankind.

As a statesman long tried, laborious, practical and profound; as an orator great beyond all examples in American history; as a diplomatist feared by European monarchs, and successful in the most difficult of all diplomatic schemes; as an unyielding and efficient supporter of the various measures by which the Whig party proposes to benefit the nation; as a friend to the eminently national project of Land Reform; and as a zealous and unflinching Whig; in fine, as a man eminently fitted to guide the councils of this nation, to give dignity to its domestic acts and foreign policy, and to hasten us on the path to our high destiny, our preferences were naturally in favor of Daniel Webster. We represented his services in that light in which they deserved to be placed; nor did we hesitate to say that if any thing can entitle a citizen to the nomination for the highest office in the gift of his fellows, it rests first in that combination of statesmanlike qualities which go so far to form the glory and renown of Webster.

In being just to Mr. Webster, we were just to his distinguished competitors. Never before was a choice made to rest between three men so eminent, and so warmly backed by the incontestable proofs of actual service. Never was choice so delicate. One candidate was already in the Presidential office. Another was his Secretary of State, and acting officially under his direction. The other was engaged under his orders as a General of the United States Army. Each of the three enjoyed the veneration and confidence of an influential portion of the Whig party. And never has there been a time when to speak well of one candidate was to say so little to the disparagement of the others. In suggesting, therefore, the claims of the Secretary of State for the Presidency, we felt that we enjoyed a peculiar immunity

from derogating from his competitors, since we felt that in this instance it was easy to be just.

It was with no blind and indiscriminate eulogy that we remarked upon the characters of Fillmore and Scott. We recognized the claims of both to the warmest affection of the Whig party. The one had shown us an example of a liberal, firm, and progressive administration; the other had rendered material services to the State, second only to those of Washington himself. We felt that they had merited the rewards they had already received, and were not undeserving higher honors. While we deemed the nomination of Mr. Webster an act at once of policy and justice, we argued that if he were set aside the choice should fall upon one of the remaining two of the illustrious group. In either case we saw a good Whig, a national man, and an upright President; and when our preferences were overruled by the majority of Conventional delegates, we felt that, however much the friends of Messrs. Fillmore and Webster might endure disappointment as individuals, the great Whig party was yet intact and harmonious, and that its moral and political strength was in no wise impaired by the discussion through which it had passed.

Our views might have assumed a more sombre aspect, had we suffered ourselves to contemplate any such unwarrantable despotism as was exercised by the "Democratic" Convention in its nomination of a candidate desired by none of its constiuents. But as the Whigs did not send their delegates to Baltimore to nominate a third-rate man over the heads of wiser and more distinguished candidates, so we had no fear that such a suicidal course would be pursued. The choice of the Whig party lay palpably between Scott, Webster, and Fillmore. That choice the delegates were bound to respect and abide by, and we congratulate them and the party that they have done so. There would have been no excuse for them had they done otherwise. The candidates were disfigured by no false pretensions; they were hampered by no vile associations; they were dogged by no foul and blackening history. The party had not proposed them, after months of deliberation, and in the solemn faith of honest men, to have them promiscuously thrown overboard. The ship was not so waterlogged to render such an act necessary. The officers were

not so unworthy that they must be swept from the decks to give place to an unknown subaltern. The "unknown man" game can never be played successfully in the ranks of the Whig party, and any attempts at such shameless imposition, should they ever take place, will be summarily and effectually put down. Let such manoeuvring do for the "Democracy." It may suit their tastes, although time alone can determine this. The prescription is a bitter one for them, but they may swallow it. But it will never do for the Whigs. The chances are infinite against its being attempted by any Whig Convention, nor indeed can it ever happen until a Convention of Whigs shall come together with the pre-determined purpose of organizing defeat for the party whom they represent.

In the most unequivocal terms, therefore, and with pride and pleasure, speaking for the National Whig party, both of the North and South, do we accept the nomination of Winfield Scott. He stands before us on a platform broad and firm; the representative of principles national and enduring, untrammelled by inconsistencies or political wrongdoing, attended by an unbroken prestige of success, and strong in the confidence of the party by whom he is supported. Already has disapointment passed from the feelings of the supporters of rival candidates, and the hearty and universal ratification of the nomination has afforded an unmistakable sign of that victory which, already organized, waits only the progress of time for its fulfilment.

We are aware of the antipathy manifested by a few Southern men, formerly Whigs, to the nomination, and their determination to oppose it. While we regret that we should be obliged to chronicle any withdrawals from the Whig party at any time, and for any cause, we are not conscious of any such feelings of dismay at this defection as the opposition seem disposed to ascribe to us. For, in the case of Messrs. Toombs, Stephens, and their more intimate political associates, this disaffection is not of recent origin. It has existed so long that we have became quite well acquainted with it. have measured it by itself, by its precedents, and by concomitant circumstances, and we find in it little cause for alarm. We acknowledge a greater degree of concern in the case of Messrs. Gentry and Williams,