With the disappearance of that party--and perhaps for the very reasons
that caused its disappearance--up rose radical organizations who strode
so far beyond progressive Democracy that Democracy took the place now
left vacant by the old Whig party, and became the reservoir into which
all conservatism was poured. Therefore it is that so many of those men,
eminent in their day, eminent for their services, eminent in their
history, have approved of the Democratic party in the present condition
of the country as the only conservative element which remains in our
politics. In the midst of this radicalism, of this revolutionary
tendency, it becomes not the regret of a partisan merely; it is the
sadness of an American citizen, that the party on which the conservative
hopes of the country hang has been threatened with division, and
possibly may not hereafter be united. Thanks to a sanguine temperament,
thanks to an abiding faith, thanks to a confidence in the Providence
which has so long ruled for good the destiny of my country, I believe it
will reunite, and reunite upon sound and acceptable principles. At
least, I hope so.
From the postulates which I have laid down result the fourth and fifth
resolutions. They are the two which I expect to be opposed. They contain
the assertion of the equality of rights of all the people of the United
States in the Territories, and they declare the obligation of the
Congress to see these rights protected.
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