well as the new") that he has no principles, and that the Whig party have
abandoned their principles by adopting him as their candidate. He
maintained that Gen. Taylor occupied a high and unexceptionable Whig
ground, and took for his first instance and proof of this the statement
in the Allison letter--with regard to the bank, tariff, rivers and
harbors, etc.--that the will of the people should produce its own
results, without executive influence. The principle that the people
should do what--under the Constitution--as they please, is a Whig
principle. All that Gen. Taylor is not only to consent to, but appeal to
the people to judge and act for themselves. And this was no new doctrine
for Whigs. It was the "platform" on which they had fought all their
battles, the resistance of executive influence, and the principle of
enabling the people to frame the government according to their will. Gen.
Taylor consents to be the candidate, and to assist the people to do what
they think to be their duty, and think to be best in their national
affairs, but because he don't want to tell what we ought to do, he is
accused of having no principles. The Whigs here maintained for years that
neither the influence, the duress, or the prohibition of the executive
should control the legitimately expressed will of the people; and now
that, on that very ground, Gen. Taylor says that he should use the power
given him by the people to do, to the best of his judgment, the will of
the people, he is accused of want of principle, and of inconsistency in
position.

Mr. Lincoln proceeded to examine the absurdity of an attempt to make a
platform or creed for a national party, to all parts of which all must
consent and agree, when it was clearly the intention and the true
philosophy of our government, that in Congress all opinions and
principles should be represented, and that when the wisdom of all had
been compared and united, the will of the majority should be carried out.