The Daily National Whig

DAILY NATIONAL WHIG.
John W. Forney, Editor and Proprietor.
WASHINGTON, D. C.:
FRIDAY MORNING, MAY 18, 1849.

The assassins of public and private character, who appear to have entrapped in their meshes the kind-hearted editor of the Union, beyond the power of escape, have whetted their knives again, and have once more begun to pursue their favorite vocation, through the columns of the common receptacle of their editorial labors. Their last desperate effort, in their war against personal reputation, is to be found in the Union of the 15th instant. It is headed "Disgraceful Spectacle," an appropriate name for every word of the venomous and wicked thoughts which the article conveys. It embodies all the malignity of the Father of Lies, all his brazen-faced impudence, all his eagerness for the destruction of everything that is good in human character, and it is even clothed in the foul language which none but a fiend could be capable of using. It sets at naught all the requirements of decency and propriety, and utters not a single truth, from beginning to end. The author of this article must have a heart not to be envied. We give him the credit of having produced the most diabolical piece of composition, both in words and in ideas, that we have ever had the misfortune to read; and we are determined, so far as it depends upon our help, that he shall receive and enjoy, to the full, the notoriety of infamy which he has so sedulously sought and so triumphantly earned.

It will be remembered that this same journal, the Union, and the whole Democratic party in Congress, at the time vociferously denounced Gen. Taylor for the armistice of Monterey; and yet, at this late day, we are forced to read in its columns a warm eulogium of that very armistice, in order to be told that the credit of that armistice is due, not to Gen. Taylor, but solely to his associates in arms! This Union, which condemned without stint Gen. Taylor as unworthy to lead American arms to victory, because of his kindly nature in agreeing to a truce, when he had the enemy in his power and could have crushed him without resistance—such was the argument of the Union at the time—this same Union, which said that General Taylor had too much of the milk of human kindness in his character to be a great and successful General, now turns about and proclaims that this armistice was a glorious achievement in the history of American warfare, was a graceful, chivalrous, generous and meritorious act, and worthy of all praise, but that the credit of it was not due to the heroic Chief who dictated it, as the history of the event declares, in opposition to the advice of many, if not most of his brother officers, but that it is due to those officers who opposed it!! Can misrepresentation, purposed, wilful misrepresentation go further? Was ever impudence like this? The utterer of this base slander against Gen. Taylor, the coiner of this outrageous falsehood, must have known that he was calumniating the President, must have known that he was falsifying the truth of history, or if he did not know it, he has certainly won the right to wear the cap and bells of the king's fool for the remainder of his days. None but a knave or fool would have ever been guilty of denying to General Taylor the credit of the armistice of Monterey, and especially of denying him credit for the act through the columns of the same paper that had denounced, abused and vilified the old Hero for being the author of it.

After having perpetrated this outrage upon truth and decency, one would suppose that the author could not say anything worse against Gen. Taylor; but the reader will be astonished to hear that this assassin of personal reputation does not stop at this point. Like his prototype, the parent of sin, having turned his back on truth and righteousness, he continues his descent lower and lower, deeper and deeper into the abyss of evil thoughts, and hurls against the head of the object of his wrath the most embittered weapons of vituperation. Fortunately, for the sake of justice, they strike the panoply of the uprightness in which the merciful old Chief is clad, and fall innocuous at his feet. Let us send them back to the bosom which engendered them, and perchance they may rend the heart of the author with remorse, and, we hope with penitence, for his wicked and malicious conduct. The whole article is an utter disgrace to the Union, if indeed anything could disgrace that paper, and exhibits its venerable editor, as we have already said, in the most pitiable condition that can be imagined. But while his position excites the commiseration of all good men, we cannot permit the things who are using him for their own base purposes and striving to destroy the glorious reputation of Gen. Taylor and his cabinet, to escape with impunity.

It is notorious that nearly all the incumbents of office, on the 4th of March last, had taken a most active part in the late canvass against the election of General Taylor. They did not confine themselves to the exercise of the right of suffrage, but they neglected the public duty to electioneer against the successful candidate. They did so openly and boldly, and braved the friends of Taylor—whom they styled the minions of Taylorism—and defied Gen. Taylor, in advance, to remove them from office, if he should be elected, though in the happening of such an event they were unbelievers in their hearts. Where now is all their bravado, all their independence, all their love of the liberty to do as they please, even unto the neglect of the public business? Where now is all their unterrified Democracy, all their unsaleable consciences, all their horror of a military chieftain, all their open defiances of the man who had no principles, all their love of rotation in office when their own party is in power? All, all, absorbed in the pitiful, whining, unmanly cry of proscription because Gen. Taylor is carrying out his pledge to purify the federal official corps of all incompetency, faithlessness, and dishonesty, of which it was and still is full. The President is now accused by this editorial assassin of the Union, whose vilifications are the subject of these remarks, of being deficient in forbearance and mercy to these very Democratic office-holders, who took such an active part against his election, and supported and sustained by their money the political press that heaped upon his head, during the canvass, whole mountains of abuse and falsehood! And this accusation is made, too, in the face of the fact to the contrary—a fact known to every man, woman, and child in the country—that the public judgment, in its demand for the execution of justice upon the corruptions of twenty years' standing, has outrun the wise and deliberate action of the Executive in the premises. Want of forbearance and mercy indeed! His whole course has been and is one of the most patient forbearance with and mercy towards official shortcomings that has ever been exhibited in any government. But to the guilty, justice, come when it may, comes too soon, and hence this apologist's tears and groans and vituperation.

But the climax of this impudent and insolent writer's denunciations of the President is yet to come. He proclaims that thousands of Democrats have been driven from office to pecuniary ruin and beggary, that these removed Democratic office-holders fought and bled by the side of Gen. Taylor, that the President is a revengeful despot, that he is an imbecile and has no capacity for the discharge of the duties of President, that he is surrounded by low-minded, unprincipled and shameless politicians, that his personal friends have no regard for his reputation, that his course of policy in regard to appointments provokes the disgust and aversion of the people, that his personal popularity is daily diminishing, that his laurels are fading, that he has disgraced and dishonored the office of President by a wanton disregard and violation of pledges made by him to attain the Presidency, that he has no political veracity, that he has delegated the high functions of his office to a ferocious Ewing and a tortuous Collamer, that the people have been deceived and deluded in the President, that he has betrayed them to their enemies, that his Administration is doomed to terminate a disgraceful career!!! A thousand notes of wonder and admiration would not serve, we are sure, to indicate the astonishment and shock to every good feeling of human nature which these malignant declarations will have upon the mind of the reader. Is there a man so devoid of all self-respect, of all love of truth, as to read these things without indignation at the conduct of the editor of the Union in suffering his paper to become their vehicle? The feeling of every just and candid mind towards the writer may easily be imagined. The scorn and contempt which he must excite in every reader's breast cannot possibly be expressed in words. They sicken the heart for pity that any man could be found on the surface of this earth so degraded, so mean, so utterly destitute of moral principle, as to be guilty of inditing such thoughts as those we have enumerated above, about the Chief Magistrate of this Republic and his Cabinet. Low as is our estimate of fallen humanity, this exhibition of demoniac spleen and spite has lowered it a thousand degrees. There is no redeeming trait in any of the above declarations. They are not mere differences of political opinion. They are downright, absolute, wicked, wilful falsehoods, emanating from a heart as black as the falsehoods uttered. No Democrat has been reduced to beggary by the act of his removal from office, and even if he were, the public interest must be consulted before private interests are. To say that Democratic office-holders fought and bled by Taylor's side is such an absurdity and so much at variance with the truth that it only needs to say that they fought, bled and died, to complete the climax of folly. Neither revenge, nor despotism, nor imbecility, nor incapacity, forms any part of Zachary Taylor's nature or mind. Such ignoble things belong only to the nature and mind of his envious detractors. To call the cabinet of the old Hero low-minded, unprincipled and shameless, is just as true as it would be to call the cabinet of Mr. Polk high-minded, principled and modest! The President's cabinet need no vindication from such an attack. It is like the baying of a dog at the moon. But the President's friends, in the eyes of this vilifier, have no care for his reputation! God help him, if they had not, for his enemies have neither care for his fame nor mercy for his errors, if any there be. We have seen no provocation of disgust and aversion to him among the people. There may be a good deal of these feelings among the displaced and disappointed, but that is of no moment. His personal popularity is daily on the advance, because he is a true man and the elements of truth are in all his acts. His laurels are growing greener every day. He has elevated and honored the office to which he has been elevated, by the performance, to the letter, of his pledges. His political veracity was not doubted before the election, though the Union daily sought to make him out an utterer of untruths. He has delegated away none of the functions of his high office, but he executes the laws vigorously and requires the strict performance of every legal duty assigned to the Heads of Departments and all other offices of Government. The just and mild Ewing, the straightforward and judicious Collamer, the upright and manly Crawford, the high-toned and decisive Johnson, the conciliating and accomplished Preston, the frank and sagacious Meredith, and the universally beloved and wise statesman, Clayton, are the members of a cabinet whom no abuse can ever reach, or whose determination to do their duty no denunciation can ever turn aside. There has been no delusion, no deception, in the election of Gen. Taylor. He has not betrayed the Government into the hands of the people's enemies, from whose possession they have so recently rescued it—but this, no doubt, is the cause of all the grief and anger of the Union and its co-editors. As to the disgraceful career predicted for Gen. Taylor's Administration, the future will show who is the prophet—we who prophecy a brilliant and glorious career for it, or this hoarse-throated crow who is croaking its sinister wishes.

Enough for the present, but more when the disgraceful pen, whose production we have thus noticed, shall make its appearance in the Union again.