nd brilliant
illustrations--only interrupted by warm and frequent applause. He
began by expressing a real feeling of modesty in addressing an
audience this 'side of the mountains,' a part of the country where, in
the opinion of the people of his section, everybody was supposed to be
instructed and wise. But he had devoted his attention to the question
of the coming Presidential election, and was not unwilling to exchange
with all whom he might the ideas to which he had arrived. He then
began to show the fallacy of some of the arguments against General
Taylor, making his chief theme the fashionable statement of all those
who oppose him (the old Locofocos as 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 General Taylor
occupied a high and unexceptionable Whig ground, and took for his
first instance and proof of this his 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--they please, is a Whig principle. All
that, General Taylor not only consents to, but appeals 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.
General 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 have maintained
for years that neither the influence, the duress, nor the prohibition
of the executive should control the legitimately expressed will of the
people; and now that on that very ground General 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