Speech of Joseph Holt, Delivered at a Democratic Meeting Held at the Court House, in the City of Louisville, on the Evening of the 19th of October, 1852 (Classic Reprint) PDF Download

Author: Joseph Holt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781330893616
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 22

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Book Description
Excerpt from Speech of Joseph Holt, Delivered at a Democratic Meeting Held at the Court House, in the City of Louisville, on the Evening of the 19th of October, 1852 After a few introductory remarks, Mr. Holt continued as follows: Fellow Citizens: In the observations, necessarily somewhat desultory, which I may have the honor of submitting to your consideration to-night, it will be my endeavor to confine myself to a discussion of what I conceive to be the true issues which have been for years, and I verily believe are still pending between the two great poUtical parties discarding all personalities, as unworthy of entering into the controversy. And to such of our Whig friends as have paid us the compliment of being present on this occasion, I would say, in all frankness, that whatever of criticism or of denunciation may escape me, must find its interpretation in reference to principles, not men. To the Whigs, as a party, I unhesitatingly accord integrity and patriotism nothing doubting but that they cherish their principles as sincerely as do I my convictions of the disastrous consequences to which those principles, if pursued, must ultimately lead. At the threshold, I must be permitted to say which I do in no unkind or invidious spirit that the Whigs have sought (and it is to be feared, but too successfully) to make the present canvass for the presidency, strictly personal in its character thus concealing from the public eye, the real principles which are boimd up with it, and which must abide its results. Hence their orators, so far at least as they have fallen under my notice, generally begin their speeches by relating a large number of very small and very stale jokes, upon the fall of General Pierce from his horse during the Mexican campaign, and immediately thereafter, they shoot forth, like so many blazing rockets into the heaven of heavens of oratory, in glorification of the military exploits of General Scott. This, so far as I can gather it, is about the sum total of the argument just as though the American people could be induced to decide the great and absorbing question of the Presidency of the Republic, upon grounds like these? If I do not follow the course thus indicated, of personal adulation on the one hand, and personal crimination on the other, it will be, first, because I have no taste for such things, and secondly, because, having entire confidence in the strength of our priticiples, and in the capacity of the people to understand and appreciate them, I, for one am willing, and desire that the canvass, shall proceed and be determined upon these principles whose fate it involves and upon them only. As far back as the light of history or tradition conducts us, two great political parties have been found to exist in all ages and countries, claiming to be at all civilized. These parties stand out from the pages of history, as distinctly and boldly as do any mountain peaks from the undulating plains on which they cast their shadows. They are, in their nature and mission, essentially antagonistic; and though their names have changed with the tastes, the caprice or the necessities of the times, and their forms have been modified by the pressure of surrounding circumstances, yet the animating temper and purpose of each, have ever remained the same. The one is the party devoted to power the other, the party devoted to the people. The one responds to the Conservatism of the nineteenth century the other, to its Democracy. The one is based upon a distrust of the popular intelligence and integrity, and a shrinking dread of the popular power; the other rests upon an abiding faith in the head and heart of the laboring masses of mankind, whose toil and spii it make up this worlds wealth and glory a conviction, that tlicse masses have the right to regulate their own destiny, and a sublime trust, that though delayed by the fraud and violence of tyrants, tlie day of their deliverance must ultimately come. The one party.