HIS REPLY TO THE ELECTORS.

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of domestic labor and industry, should be fixed and stable, that all might know how to regulate and accommodate their conduct. And, fully convinced of the wisdom of the public measures which you have enumerated, I hoped to live to witness, and to contribute to, their adoption and establishment.

"So far as respects any official agency of mine, it has been otherwise de creed, and I bow respectfully to the decree. The future course of the gov ernment is altogether unknown, and wrapped in painful uncertainty. 1 shall not do the new administration the injustice of condemning it in ad vance. On the contrary, I earnestly desire that, enlightened by its own reflections, and by a deliberate review of all the great interests of the coun try, and prompted by public opinion, the benefit may yet be secured of the practical execution of those principles and measures for which we hav honestly contended; that peace and honor may be preserved; and that this young but great nation may be rendered harmonious, prosperous, and pow

erful.

"We are not without consolations under the event which has happened. The whig party has fully and fairly exhibited to the country the principles and measures which it believed best adapted to secure our liberties and promote the common welfare. It has made, in their support, constant and urgent appeals to the reason and judgment of the people. For myself, I have the satisfaction to know that I have escaped a great and fearful responsibility; and that, during the whole canvass, I have done nothing inconsistent with the dictates of the purest honor. No mortal man is authorized to say that I held out to him the promise of any office or appointment what

ever.

"What now is the duty of the whig party? I venture to express an opinion with the greatest diffidence. The future is enveloped in a veil impenetrable by human eyes. I can not contemplate it without feelings of great discouragement. But I know of only one safe rule in all the vicissitudes of human life, public and private, and that is, conscientiously to satisfy ourselves of what is right, and firmly and undeviatingly to pursue it under all trials and circumstances, confiding in the Great Ruler of the Universe for ultimate success. The whigs are deliberately convinced of the truth and wisdom of the principles and measures which they have espoused. It seems, therefore, to me that they should persevere in contending for them; and that, adhering to their separate and distinct organization, they should treat all who have the good of their country in view with respect and sympathy, and invite their co-operation in securing the patriotic objects which it has been their aim and purpose to accomplish.

"I heartily thank you, sir, for your friendly wishes for my happiness, in the retirement which henceforward best becomes me. Here I hope to enjoy peace and tranquillity, seeking faithfully to perform, in the walks of private life, whatever duties may yet appertain to me. And I shall never

cease, while life remains, to look with lively interest and deep solicitude, upon the movement and operations of our free system of government, and to hope that under the smiles of an all-wise Providence, our republic may be ever just, honorable, prosperous, and great.”

ery

We learn from an eyewitness that the scene, during the delivof these remarks was at once painful and interesting. While Mr. Clay was expressing his grateful regards for his friends, who had stood up to shield him from the malignant calumnies of

his enemies, and the patriotic hope that the result of the election, in the hands of an all-wise Providence, might be overruled for good to the country, every eye was suffused with manly tears. The old men who had known him in his earlier career, and had seen him come forth unharmed from amid the arrows of calumny and detraction which had been unsparingly aimed at him, and the unceasing though puerile efforts which had been made to arrest his progress-the young men who had been taught in infancy to lisp his name, and to revere him as his country's benefactor-wept together. "During Mr. Clay's remarks we occupied a position immediately in front of him; and as we watched his expressive countenance, and saw the deep emotion which at times almost overpowered him, and well nigh choked his utterance as he gave expression to the sentiments which have ever filled his bosom to the exclusion of every selfish feeling, we felt a conviction of his greatness, which, with all our former admi ration of the man, we had never before realized."

The following was the numerical result of the election of 1844 For CLAY-Massachusetts, 12; Rhode Island, 4; Connecticut, 6; Vermont, 6; New Jersey, 7; Delaware, 3; Maryland, 8; North Carolina, 11; Tennessee, 13; Kentucky, 12; Ohio, 23. Total, 105.

For POLK-Maine, 9; New Hampshire, 6; New York, 36; Pennsylvania, 26; Virginia, 17; South Carolina, 9; Georgia, 10; Alabama, 9; Mississippi, 6; Louisiana, 6; Indiana, 12; Illinois, 9; Missouri, 7; Michigan, 5; Arkansas, 3.—Total, 170.

The official popular vote showed for CLAY, 1,297,912; for POLK, 1,336,196; for BIRNEY, the candidate of the "liberal party" (sad misnomer!) as they called themselves, 62,127. Mr. Polk's majority over Mr. Clay, exclusive of South Carolina, where the presidential electors were chosen by the legislature, was 38,284. If to this be added 20,000 as the majority of Mr. Polk in South Carolina, his aggregate majority over Mr. Clay was 58,284. Place the Birney vote (62,127) by the side of this, and it will be seen that Mr. Polk did not receive the votes of a majority of the people. Mr. Clay received more votes by upward of twenty thousand than General Harrison, with all his

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popularity and the immense efforts of the whigs, received in 1840. Take into account the large abstraction from the whig ranks in the state of New York by Birney, the alienations produced by the "Native" party, and other causes, to which we shall more particularly allude, and it will be seen that the whigs had abundant cause to confide in the strength of their candidate with the people, and to feel assured that, but for the frauds, treacheries, and decents that were practised, their triumph would bave been as complete as their cause was just.

XXIII.

THE FRAUDS AND FOLLIES OF 1844.

THE causes of the defeat of the whigs in the presidential election of 1844, can be distinctly traced without the aid of hypothesis and speculation. Foremost among them we may cite the foreign influence-which, operating principally in the state of New-York, was also powerfully felt in Pennsylvania and other states. Early in the canvass, Mr. Brownson, a recent convert to the Roman catholic religion, the editor of a quarterly review published in Boston, and a writer of no mean abilities, gave the key-note for misrepresentations, which were echoed, with most malignant effect, from Maine to Louisiana. Of Mr. Frelinghuysen he wrote in the following terms:

"Mr. Frelinghuysen is not only a whig in the worst sense of the term, but he is also the very impersonation of narrow-minded, ignorant, conceited bigotry a man who attacks religious liberty, demands the unhallowed union of church and state, and contends that the government should legally recognise the religion of the majority, and declare whatever goes counter to that to be contra bonos mores. He concentrates in himself the whole spirit of 'Native Americanism,' and 'No Popery,' which displayed itself so bril liantly in the recent burnings of the catholic dwellings, seminaries, and churches, in the city of Philadelphia.”

Invective like this, false and flagrant, carried with them still some speciousness. Mr. Frelinghuysen was well understood to be identified with a sect more earnest, perhaps, than any other in their denunciations of popery and its dangers. We all know

the potency of religious prejudices, and how high above mere secular interests a believer will place the interests of the church. The Roman catholics, embracing probably nine tenths of our adopted citizens and foreign immigrants, were jealously alive to suspicions and apprehensions such as Mr. Brownson and others, who had their confidence, saw fit to instill. The recollection of Gen. Harrison's death, a month after his installation, and the consequent elevation of the vice-president to his seat, were fresh in everybody's mind. "Why may not Mr. Frelinghuysen become your president, and, in his presbyterian zeal, burn your churches and drive away your priests ?" was the question asked of thousands of foreigners, legal and illegal voters, with irresistible effect.

A native-American party, too, had suddenly sprung into consequence about this time. The assiduous attempts of the locofocos to secure by any means, however disorganizing, the foreign vote-the repeated frauds perpetrated by foreigners, falsely claiming to be naturalized, at the polls—the gregarious and antiAmerican attitude assumed by bodies of them, here and therethe consideration that hordes of immigrants, utterly ignorant of our political system, its workings, and its wants, unable, perhaps, even to read and write, had it in their power, after a brief residence, to vote, while the intelligent American, with sympathies all awake to his country's interests, well versed in her history, and having a deep stake in her welfare, but who had not passed the age of twenty-one, was debarred from the same privilege-facts and considerations like these, had produced a powerful reaction in the minds of native citizens; and, in the states of New York and Pennsylvania, had given rise to a party, undisciplined, badly organized, and deficient in influential leaders, but exercising great capacities for mischief. All the odium produced in the minds of adopted citizens and foreign illegal voters, by the acts and denunciations of this party, was transferred, most unjustly, to the whigs and Mr. Clay, while, at the same time, no measure of support was rendered to them by the new organization. Mr. Clay had never identified himself in any degree with the principles of this party. His course toward foreigners and adopted citizens, had always been one of extreme liberality. The Irish and Germans had always found in him a ready champion and a true

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friend. In his speeches in regard to the recognition of South American independence, he had manifested a spirit the most magnanimous and tolerant toward the professors of the Roman catholic belief; and yet now, through the insidious manœuvres of his opponents, were all the errors and all the prospective acts, threatened and imaginary, of "nativism," converted to his injury!

The apprehension was studiously inculcated by the partisans of Mr. Polk, that the success of this faction was involved in that of Mr. Clay; that the consequence would be an immediate abolition or modification of the naturalization laws, greatly restricting the facilities of aliens for becoming voters. This apprehension had its effect even upon goodly numbers of adopted citizens who had heretofore voted the whig ticket. It also precipated the naturalizing of thousands with the express purpose of opposing nativism, and sent other thousands to the polls whose votes were in direct violation of the laws of the land.

These facts, it may be said, prove that a reform in our naturalization laws is much needed. But in regard to the question of remedying the evil, Mr. Clay and the whig party stood, and continue to stand, no more committed than their opponents. The native-American faction was composed of members of both parties; and the attempt to make the whigs responsible for their crude policy, their abortive intrigues, and their spasmodic movements, was the basest injustice, while at the same time it was but too effectual in spreading alarm and misconception among our foreign population. Everywhere pains were taken by the opposite party to produce the impression that the whig and nativeAmerican parties were identical.

Another obvious cause of the disastrous result of the election, was the conduct of the abolition or liberty party, which derived nine tenths of its strength from the whig ranks. There was a time when Mr. James G. Birney might have secured the election of Mr. Clay, and prevented the long train of predicted calamities and crimes, accompanied by bloodshed and affliction, which succeeded the annexation of Texas. But Mr. Birney, the friend of "liberty" and enemy of annexation, threw his influence in the scale of Mr. Polk, and persisted in running for the presidency, well knowing that he was thereby aiding the election of Polk.

K*