PRINCIPLES OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 219 



their recent conduct in reference to the slavery question, 

 as the supporters of General Cass, the pro-slavery can- 

 didate, is sadly inconsistent with their affected hostility 

 to every form of tyranny. But where men go for the 

 predominance of a party, small considerations regarding 

 consistency will not readily restrain them. 



But if the principles of this extreme section of the 

 democratic party in the United States be such as their 

 own organs (the Ohio Union ^ for example,) represent 

 them, they can scarcely be charged with inconsistency 

 in this, or almost any other case. " They believe that 

 the democratic impulses are right, and should be obeyed, 

 not thwarted : they believe in and favour progress, and 

 would not prescribe a fixed rule in all minor matters for 

 all time^ but would adapt action to the circumstances 

 and exigencies which arise in the progression of events, 

 and to the rights and interests which accompany or 

 result from that progression and its changes." This is 

 virtually surrendering principle to impulse, and giving 

 the reins into the hands of a constantly shifting expe- 

 diency. If they find it expedient, for party purposes, to 

 oppose the extension of slavery to-day, therefore, it 

 will not, with these professions, be inconsistent to pro- 

 nounce it expedient to favour that extension to-morrow. 



Proceeding from Eochester to Attica, a distance of 

 forty-four miles, in a south-west direction, we again 

 crossed the several geological formations I have already 

 described, and saw much strong wheat-land. Here and 

 there considerable patches of forest remained, and some- 

 times fields with the stumps standing ; and occasionally 

 my memory was refreshed by a more or less extensive 

 burning of the stumps, reminding me of what I had 

 seen so frequently, and on so large a scale, in the forests 

 of New Brunswick. Thirty miles more brought me to 

 Buffalo ; and upon this tract the native forest, still 

 untouched, and the log cabin, and the half-cleared land, 



