Binghamton, N. Y., Sept. 8th, 1848.
Dear Sir: I
sent you by yesterday's mail, a copy of the Albany Evening Journal, the leading
whig paper in this State, in which you will find a full endorsement of the
platform laid down at Buffalo as the old Whig platform. I send you
herewith to-day a printed circular recently issued by the Whig State Central
Committee, which is now being circulated throughout the State. I can vouch for
its genuineness. The Whigs and Barnburners seem to vie with each other in the
present crusade against the South. The Democratic party which supports Cass and
Butler are the only advocates of a strict adherence to the Constitution and its
compromises to be found in the North. Can it be possible that in such a contest
the South will fail to stand by the Constitution, its own interests, and by its
Northern friends? I will not permit myself to doubt that it will be found equal
to the emergency. The idea is strange to us indeed, that Southern votes are to
be given to aid sectional disorganizers and disunionists. It cannot — it ought
not to be so. He that does not protect as well as provide for his own
household is truly worse than an infidel.
_______________
* Member of Congress from New York, 1847-1849.
SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual
Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The
Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p.
125
