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