Worcester Daily Spy

The Springfield Republican, which by the way is the ablest newspaper that the Whigs of Massachusetts have at the present time, expresses a very strong desire that the Whig Convention which is to assemble at Fitchburg to-morrow, should declare for some distinct practical democratic measures of Constitutional reform. It says, "the interests of the State and the rights of the people require certain important alterations in the Constitution." We are glad to see such indications of a progressive spirit on the part of our cotemporary, but fear that its appeals to the Whig party will avail nothing. The great majority of the Whigs have settled down in the conviction that the old Constitution was the embodiment of political wisdom, and that what was good enough for the fathers is good enough for the children, and they desire no change. This has been the language of all their presses, with the exception of the Atlas while under Col. Schouler's control, and we think our friends of the Republican will find it hard work to impress such a body of old fogies as will meet in Convention at Fitchburg with their Young America notions.

Reverence for antiquity has become a leading characteristic of the Whigs of Massachusetts. They do not inquire so much as to the goodness of any measure, as they do if it is old, and to such an extent do they carry this sentiment of veneration, that with all their love of the Fugitive Slave Law it may be doubted if they would be half so zealous for its enforcement, if they were not fully persuaded in their own minds that it is in reality the statute of '93 slightly modified in its grammatical construction.— Therefore, when the Republican asks them to "strike out boldly and unfalteringly in a new path-such as the times demand, and their own existence as a party calls for-to declare for real, substantial, practical reform, and tell the people what they mean by reform"—it asks for the performance of an impossibility. It would be a funny sight indeed to see the hunker Whigs "strike out boldly and unfalteringly" into anything, but to see them striking into a new path, and begin to tell the people what they mean by reform, would be a matter of as much surprise as to find the truth in the Boston Atlas or a little common sense in the Lowell Courier.