THE B. Crince 175h REPUBLICAN SCRAP BOOK; CONTAINING THE PLATFORMS, AND A CHOICE SELECTION OF EXTRACTS, SETTING FORTH OWN WRITERS, AND THE OPINIONS OF CLAY, WEBSTER, JOSIAH EXTENSION. “ORNIA "But fool is he the yoke that filings Or curtain hung upon the East, The daylight from the world to keep.' - HOGG. BOSTON: JOHN P. JEWETT & CO. 1856. JK2357 This pamphlet may be obtained by the quantity, for distribution, at the rate of 12 cents apiece REPUBLICAN SCRAP-BOOK. This pamphlet has been prepared with a view to preserving in a convenient form and keeping before the people certain facts and views that are of the utmost importance in the present canvass. The Platforms of the three parties are given, the nature and designs of the slave oligarchy in their endeavor to elect Buchanan and to divide the North, are shown forth by extracts from their own writers. In opposition to the nefarious doctrines of the plotters for slavery extension, that now control the Democratic party, the views are here presented of our greatest statesmen, Washington, Jefferson, Webster, Clay, Quincy, and others. Nothing can be more instructive than the contrast thus exhibited. The reader's attention is particularly called to those extracts which show the anti-republican and oligarchic character of the slaveholding class, and the debasing effect on the laborer of that slave system which the Democratic party would extend into all our Territories. Editors of Fremont papers are especially desired to examine the extracts here presented. Many of them, it is believed, will bear republication, and a more general diffusion than they have yet had. From the N. Y. Evening Post for Sept. 5. The Use to be made of Mr. Fillmore. UNIV. O count very confidently upon preventing his In a long article which appears in the Washington Daily American Organ of yesterday, the plan is stated very broadly, and in such a manner as to commend it to the favor of those who support the Cincinnati platform and its candidates. In substance it amounts to this that the Buchaniers and the Know-Nothings are to act together in such a manner as to prevent the choice of Fremont by the electoral colleges, and having brought the election by this means into the House of Representatives, are to unite upon Mr. Breckinridge as VicePresident, leaving the Presidency vacant. The executive chair would then be filled by the Vice President, who would be expected, as a matter of course, to be suitably grateful to auxiliaries from the Know Nothing party by whose aid he was made the acting Chief Magistrate. The plan is thus stated by the American Organ. We preserve the italics of the original : "It is, we think, perfectly evident, that if there be no election by the people, through the electoral colleges, Mr. Breckinridge would be chosen Vice-President by the Senate, and in the event of a failure by the House of Representatives to elect a President, he would become the President a lesser calamity, in our judgment, than the election of Buchanan. The Richmond Enquirer may make the most' of this opinion. The friends of Mr. Fillmore now rest what little hope is left them upon the House of Representatives. There is no well-informed manamong them who does not fully understand that there is no chance of his election by "We suppose we may safely assume, that the people. The policy now agreed upon by with all classes in the South, the election of the more knowing ones among them seems to Breckinridge as Vice President, and his accesbe simply this: to use his nomination as part sion to the Presidency, would be greatly preof the machinery for preventing Colonel Fre- ferred to the election of Buchanan as Presimont from obtaining a majority of the electoral dent. It being certain, that the Democratic votes. If they should succeed in this, they Senate would elect Breckinridge as Vice Pres M35308 # ident, and that, if no election were made by the House, he would become the President, by virtue of his election as Vice President, it follows that no Southern or conservative man can reasonably object to having the election thrown into Congress. The failure of an election by the people, under this state of the case, brings no increased danger to the South, or to any portion of the country; for, the House would either elect Fillmore as President, or, there being no election by the House, Breckinridge would become the President. "We are not afraid of the House of Representatives-we believe that Mr. Fillmore would be certainly elected by that body - but if not, we should have some consolation under our temporary defeat, in the considerations we have mentioned. "The advocates of Buchanan in the South have sought to infuse a horror into the public mind at the bare idea of the election being thrown into the House, assuming that the election of Fremont might result from it. We have heretofore shown that Fremont's election by the House is impossible. Every man who understands the condition of parties in the House, and who knows that each State has but one vote in the election of President by the House, knows that the idea of Fremont's election by that body is simply ridiculous. The advocates of Buchanan, however, dread the House of Representatives-they know that he cannot be elected there they know that the Fillmore States hold the balance of power, and that they could give the Republicans their choice, to permit Breckinridge to become the President, or to elect Fillmore to that position! The argument, then, which has been used at the South, in favor of a union upon Buchanan, to keep the election out of the House, is deceptious and Jesuitical." "To what base uses we may come at last." Mr. Fillmore, good, easy man, in the innocency of his heart, supposes that he is nominated to be elected. No such thing; he is only nominated to divide the North, to draw off votes from Fremont, to help make John C. Breckinridge Vice President. The declarations with which the development of this plan is sweetened, that Mr. Fillmore will" certainly" be elected by the House, if by proper manœvres a choice by the people can be prevented, amount to nothing. The American party is feeble in the House of Representatives and the Buchanan party strong, and the compact and well-drilled body who support the administration will not come over to the few and somewhat vacillating and irresolute members calling themselves Americans, and give them all they ask by making Mr. Fillmore President. It is absurd to suppose them willing to make a losing bargain like this, when the American Organ assures them in the same breath that it is willing to give them an infinitely better one in conferring the Chief Magistracy on one of their candidates-Breckinridge. The election of Fillmore by the House is, therefore, an impossibility. Mr. Fillmore must be exceedingly flattered when he discovers the object for which he is set up. The American Organ, it will be seen, acknowledges that, if he were to retire from the field, the triumph of the Republican candidate would be certain. "If," says the Organ, "the South should be induced to unite upon Buchanan, the country would be at once arrayed in a sectional contest,-purely so; and in such a contest, tendered by the South to the North, and accepted by them, the result will be the triumph of a Northern sectional party." This is to say, Buchanan would be beaten in any fair computation upon the ground which he and his followers have taken, the extension of slavery. Make that the point in dispute— as it really is — withdraw all topics got up for the purpose of distracting the attention of the people,—extinguish all false lights, and the Organ acknowledges that the people would give their voice for Fremont. We do not know what Buchanan may say without a peer- - without a rival. Several months since, he proclaimed that he marched with no party that did not carry the flag and keep step to the music of the Union. Always a Whig-at one time a Whig Senator in Congress - he is now advocating the election of Buchanan. to this scheme of setting him aside, but one thing, at least, is clear, that if his friends do not enter into some understanding with the Fillmore members of the House, Breckinridge cannot be elected. They will have only to promise that the words of the Organ shall be duly fulfilled, that Breckinridge shall "form his own associations," this is to say, reward in "Coming further South, the eye rests on some manner those who vote for him. Per- such men as Randall and Reed, of Pennsylvahaps, while the negotiation is in progress, nia; Clayton, of Delaware; Pearce, Pratt and means may be found to persuade these pliant Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland; Burwell, of members to go a step further and vote for Mr. Virginia; Clingman, of North Carolina; PresBuchanan as President. We do not think ton, ex-Senator Dixon and James Clay, of that Mr. Buchanan would be particularly im- Kentucky; Senator Geyer, Caruthers, and practicable in an arrangement like this. He Oliver, of Missouri; Senator Jones and Watis not at all nice in his associations, as he has kins, of Tennessee; Jenkins, of Georgia; Perfully proved, and would as readily lie in the cy Walker and Judge Ormond, of Alabama; same truckle-bed with a Know Nothing as and Senator Benjamin, of Louisiana. How with a Democrat, provided there were any puny seem the arguments of our opponents personal advantage to be derived from it. It against Democracy, when opposed to the acts would be quite as easy, we fancy, to make the of such men as these. We venture to say that arrangement, to which the Organ alludes, with never in the history of parties in America behim as with his Kentucky associate on the ticket. fore, was seen the spectacle of so many men (those mentioned are but specimens) going by common impulse to the support of the candidate of a party, to which, for a life-time, they had stood opposed." his Mr. Fillmore may now see, if he will open eyes, the fate which is reserved for him. He is put up to be beaten, to amuse the North while the South is accomplishing its ends, and then to be laid aside with the old lumber of parties with John Tyler and Franklin Pierce, for neither of whom is there any further occasion. His pretended friends no longer think of him as the probable President; the eyes of those who manage the American party at Washington are turned to the prospect of a coalition with the administration party, by which Breckinridge, under the name of Vice President, can be placed in the Executive chair. It is becoming more evident every day that Fillmore has no chance. See what the old Whigs thinks of it. From the N. Y. Evening Post, Aug. 1st. One of the most extraordinary phenomena of the present political contest is the alacrity with which a certain class of Whigs, including some of the most bigoted of their party, enrol themselves in the ranks of Buchanan's supporters. The Savannah Georgian, in an exulting article, thus enumerates one of the most remarkable of these instances: "In Maine, we point to Evans, unquestionably the ablest statesman that commonwealth has ever sent to the councils of the Republic. In Massachusetts, who is there that can be compared as an orator and advocate with Rufus Choate? In all New England he stands What Mr. Choate says. "While I entertain a high appreciation of the character and ability of Mr. Fillmore, I do not sympathize in any degree with the objects and creed of the particular party that nominated him, and do not approve of their organization and their tactics. Practically, too, the contest in my judgment is between Mr. Buchanan and Col. Fremont. In these circumstances I shall vote for Mr. Buchanan.” DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. Platform of the National Democratic Convention, 1856. Resolved, That the American Democracy place their trust in the intelligence, the patriotism and the discriminating justice of the American people. Resolved, That we regard this as a distinctive feature of our political creed, which we are proud to maintain before the world as the great moral element in a form of government springing from and upheld by the popular will; and we contrast it with the creed and practice of federalism, under whatever name or form, which seeks to palsy the will of the constituent, and which conceives no imposture too monstrous for the popular credulity. |