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.
A. Lincoln. S. T. Logan. A. T.
Bledsoe.
March 4, 1843.
TO JOHN BENNETT.
Springfield, March 7, 1843.
Friend Bennett: