wish to ask the gentleman if the Whigs are the only party he can think of
who sometimes turn old horses out to root. Is not a certain Martin Van
Buren an old horse which your own party have turned out to root? and is
he not rooting a little to your discomfort about now? But in not
nominating Mr. Clay we deserted our principles, you say. Ah! In what?
Tell us, ye men of principle, what principle we violated. We say you did
violate principle in discarding Van Buren, and we can tell you how. You
violated the primary, the cardinal, the one great living principle of all
democratic representative government--the principle that the
representative is bound to carry out the known will of his constituents.
A large majority of the Baltimore convention of 1844 were, by their
constituents, instructed to procure Van Buren 's nomination if they
could. In violation--in utter glaring contempt of this, you rejected him;
rejected him, as the gentleman from New York [Mr. Birdsall] the other day
expressly admitted, for availability--that same "general availability"
which you charge upon us, and daily chew over here, as something
exceedingly odious and unprincipled. But the gentleman from Georgia [Mr.
Iverson] gave us a second speech yesterday, all well considered and put
down in writing, in which Van Buren was scathed and withered a "few" for
his present position and movements. I cannot remember the gentleman's
precise language; but I do remember he put Van Buren down, down, till he
got him where he was finally to "stink" and "rot."

Mr. Speaker, it is no business or inclination of mine to defend Martin
Van Buren in the war of extermination now waging between him and his old
admirers. I say, "Devil take the hindmost"--and the foremost. But there
is no mistaking the origin of the breach; and if the curse of "stinking"
and "rotting" is to fall on the first and greatest violators of principle
in the matter, I disinterestedly suggest that the gentleman from Georgia
and his present co-workers are bound to take it upon themselves. But the