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THE Whigs of the United States have a heavy responsibility resting on them in the approaching Presidential election. We hold that it does not admit of a reasonable doubt that they can elect ZACHARY TAYLOR to the Presidency if they will. It is equally clear to us, that if he be not elected, it will be because Whigs-some Whigsdo not possess that measure of disinterested patriotism to rise above mere party and personal, or sectional views and considerations. The trial of men's virtue never comes but when they are called on to maintain their principles at some sacrifice, or under some discouragement. Many Whigs are now in this category, and it remains to be seen how they will come out of the trial. It is the tendency of party organization to contract the horizon of duty to the country; at least, this is the effect on many minds. Party-the success of party-the exaltation of party become the absorbing objects of thought and desire. An ideal of what the party ought to be, what it ought to have and enjoy, and under what particular auspices its success and glory should be achieved, takes possession of the imagination, and sometimes quite shuts out other and higher considerations. It is forgotten, for the time, that party is properly only a means

to an end, and is really valuable-nay, is only justifiable-when it is employed as an instrumentality in behalf of the country, and of the whole country. When party becomes selfish-when it becomes ambitious-when it desires to rule for the sake of ruling, or for the profit of ruling, or because it wishes to set up its own idols in the high places of political worship, it must soon lose cast and character in the estimation of all good and wise men. A combination of men to take possession of power for purposes of their own, less comprehensive and catholic than the common good of the whole nation, is something very different from a great and patriotic party. It is a conspiracy, and not a political party.

Those who have composed the Whig party of this country have professed to unite for the purpose of promoting and maintaining certain great and distinctive principles, as being essential to the preservation of our form of government, and the advancement of the real interests and the true prosperity of the nation. When an election is at hand, like that which is now approaching, the proper question for every Whig to ask himself is, whether these principles are likely to be preserved and vindicated by our success as a party in the

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