The Woodville Republican

Will the Whigs Submit?

The question of Submission or no Submission is now fairly before the Whigs of the South: they have an opportunity of showing whether their great love of the compromise measures has been all a sham or not. A large majority of the whig party including the North, in and out of Congress, have by their acts and votes declared themselves against some feature of the compromise, while a large majority of the democratic party are decidedly in its favor. This is a fact that cannot be denied. It is useless for the whig party to attempt to make this an issue, in the coming contest for the tents are already pitched and the democratic party, the union over, occupies the compromise ground. In our opinion, the only reason why the whigs in the Southern democratic States have been such zealous union men, is, because, by that means they could do the democrats more injury, and get position and office. But now the democratic party has come on to compromise ground, our old enemy has an opportunity of returning to the bosom of the mother church. But there is a lion in the way. Mr. Seward, Greeley, & co., say to those whigs south, who have fought so bravely to save the union? and who demand a pledge of their candidate to support the compromise measures, “you can have no pledge, and before you come into the convention you must throw away your glorious union flag, and pledge yourselves not to agitate that subject at all.” Hear Mr. Washburn, representative from Maine:

“But this I may safely say: they will not consent that the whig party shall be denationalized by the introduction of any new test of political orthodoxy. They will never consent that the finality of the compromise measures shall be made a part of the whig creed; and any candidate whether he be Gen. Scott or any other man, who insists upon that, or who is nominated by a convention which affirms or requires it; cannot, in my judgement, obtain the vote of a single northern State—not one.

Gentlemen may as well understand this first as last. If we are to exist as a party, it must be on a platform on which men of all sections of the country can stand together, without any sacrifice of opinion, of principle, or of honor and not upon one which may well hold men of all parties in one section, and exclude all in another. Gentlemen should remember that if they can make a test of this kind, it will be equally competent for others to make tests in reference to the same general subject—they yield the question of jurisdiction and make slavery a national affair.”

Mr. Washburn speaks with authority, nor has he been contradicted. Hear what the New York Tribune, no mean authority, says:

“They (southern whigs) may very possibly bully some whig national convention into passing some sort of compromise resolve to quiet them; but when they get it it won't be worth the paper on which it was written. They who love slavery will uphold it, and we who hate it will keep on hating it, and try to make others hate it, with a view to its ultimate downfall, just as if no such resolve had passed.”

“We object to the passage of a 'compromise' resolve in either of the national conventions primarily, as a cheat—a gullstrap—a tub to the whale.”—

Senator Mangum has put the whig party of the nation under special obligation to him for his manly stand in resisting the movements of those southern gentlemen who have not been good enough whigs for some years past to vote for whig candidates when duly nominated. As chairman of the whig caucus, Mr. Mangum ruled as out of order a resolution declaring that the nominee of the whig party must stand on a particular platform. We rejoice that Mr. Mangum decided this movement as out of order, and we have no doubt he will be sustained therein by the mass of the whig members.

It is hardly worth while to advise in the premises; but our decided impression is, that the delegates that go up to the national convention, from all the States, should be admitted as such only on the condition that they recognize the right of the majority to rule, and that they will submit to the decision of the majority upon questions that may come before them for action. If Mr. Cabell, of Florida, is a delegate, and says he will not vote for or sustain the nominee unless he submits to stand on his particular platform, and writes letters pledging himself so to do, then we hope the rest of the delegates will say to Mr. Cabell that he had better retire and not offer himself, as he will not be recognized as a whig. If Mr. Toombs is a delegate and says, as he has said, that he will vote for a locofoco who holds his notions about certain things before he will for a whig who is not the regular nominee of the party, then Mr. Toombs should be told, emphatically, that he would not be recognized as a whig, and could not be permitted to hold a seat in the whig national convention.