Alexandria Gazette

The Democratic Party
There happens to be just now before us two
expositions of the Northern and Southern democracy upon a point of much magnitude. The
reader will perceive that the two are directly
antagonistical. The New York Herald of Wednesday
contains a speech by John Van Buren,
delivered at the Columbia County (N. Y.) Convention
assembled at the city of Hudson on the
21st April. Both the orator and the convention
belong to the political school which has taken
its stand in favor of the Wilmot Proviso principle.
It has sent its thirty-six delegates from the
State of New York to the National Democratic
Convention, which is to meet in this city next
month, and it demands that these delegates shall
be admitted as the representatives of the democracy
of New York, to the exclusion of the thirty-six
other delegates sent from the same State
by the Hunker or conservative wing of the party.
In reference to the latter, Mr. Van Buren said:
"The electoral ticket thus attempted to be put
upon the democracy is irregular and bolting, and
no honest democrat will sustain it by his vote.
The delegates selected by the Utica convention
are the only rightful representatives of the democracy
of this State: they will be received at
Baltimore. (Sensation.) Their brethren throughout
the Union will neither desire nor dare to reject
them: let them be thrown out or neutralized
by the admission of thirty-six irregular delegates:
and let the test imposed by Alabama and Georgia,
South Carolina and Florida, be applied to
the nomination of the Presidential candidate, and
while I do not undertake to say what I shall do,
I do venture to predict that the political, like the
meteorological almanac for November next,
should read "about these days, expect strong
gales from the north and west." (Tremendous
laughter and applause.)"
The point at issue between the position assumed
by the New York Provisoists, and that
announced by the Democratic State Convention
of Alabama, and subsequently sanctioned by
Democratic State Conventions in Virginia, Georgia,
and Florida, is set forth by Mr. Van Buren
in the following words:
"Let us now consider the grounds upon which
some of the Southern friends have threatened
not only to exclude our representatives from the
convention, but from all share in the administration
of the government. It is charged that
we are the friends of the Wilmot proviso: that
proviso was attached to a bill appropriating $3,000,000
for the purchase of territory from Mexico,
and it declared that the act by which such
territory was acquired, whatever it might be,
should and must contain a fundamental provision
by which slavery, except as a punishment
for crime, should be forever excluded from the
territory acquired. The proviso in this shape
received the vote of every representative from
this State in Congress save one. Our Senators
were instructed and our representatives requested
by the Legislature of 1847, I think unanimously,
to support this proviso. Pennsylvania,
Michigan, Ohio, and nearly all the free States,
made similar instructions and requests. The
question does not now arise in this shape: territory
is acquired; New Mexico and California
are ours, never to be surrendered: the President
requests Congress to organize territorial governments
over them. Oregon is ours, and its inhabitants
petition Congress for the same protection.
Our Senate, with one exception, and our House
of Assembly with four, have instructed our
Senators and requested our Representatives to
procure the insertion, in these territorial acts,
of a prohibition against the admission of slavery
into these regions so long as they shall continue
territories. The States of Virginia, Alabama,
Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, in
selecting delegates to the national convention,
insist that neither Congress nor the people of
the territories have power to prevent the holding
of slaves in these free territories: that, independent
of any law, a southern slave holder
has a right to settle in a free territory with
slaves and hold them as such. The democrats
of New York, maintaining the ground I have
stated, concede that citizens of the south may
differ with them in opinion, and assert, that
knowing this, and desiring to preserve the unity
of the democratic party as now organized, they
have never made this faith a controlling test in
an election: the democrats in the States referred
to avow that they will, under no political necessity
whatever, support any man for the office
of President or Vice-President who does not
conform to their creed upon this subject. Northern
men must therefore yield to these imperious
demands, or the southern democrats alluded to,
must abandon their position. With men of
honor there is but one course to pursue-the
party in the wrong must yield: and in this case
the southern position must be surrendered or
the South must assume the responsibility of
dismembering the democratic party"
From this exposition of the views and determinations
of the New York democracy or a
large portion of them, we turn to another paper
upon our table in which the sentiments and
purposes of the Southern democrats are declared.
The Charleston Mercury, of Monday last, at
the close of an article animadverting upon the
recent case at Washington of the abduction
and re-capture of fugitive slaves, remarks.
"This thing had to come. Pennsylvania and
her Wilmot coadjutors sowed the seed broadcast,
and the crop is now coming up, prefiguring a
plentiful harvest of crime and turpitude. It is
but the beginning of the end. It has come at
the best time. The candidates for the Presidency
are about to be selected, and most wisely
and appropriately did Alabama, Virginia, Florida
and Georgia demand of the Democratic party
that their candidate shall be free from all
taint of suspicion upon this important question.
We hope their representatives at Baltimore will
stand up strictly to this requisition, as the only
safeguard of the South, and that the other slave
States who have heretofore smothered the
voice of their people on this vital question, will
have no companionship with those who deny, or
withhold from us the fullest and most perfect
recognition of our rights and their duties. Let
the slave States now rally and demand-their
rights. Their only safety is union among themselves.
If they now give way, they will never
have so fair an opportunity of acting in concert
and efficiently. They have never had so fair a
chance of vindicating their rights, of enforcing
them, of procuring their full recognition. This
is but the beginning of outbreaks. If not
checked, promptly and thoroughly, our rights
are not worth an hour's purchase." - Balt
American.