(CONFIDENTIAL.)
BOSTON, SEPTEMBER 30, 1841.
DEAR SIR,
The time is approaching, when the duty will devolve upon the People of this
Commonwealth, of selecting the individuals into whose hands they will commit
the high trusts of the Executive and Legislative Departments of their Government
for the coming year. It is ardently to be hoped, that this duty will be so discharged
as to sustain the honor and promote the great interests of the Commonwealth;
and it is hardly necessary to add, that this desire can be realized only by
maintaining a firm adherence to Whig principles and Whig policy---those principles
and that policy, which have their origin in the Constitution, and have almost
uniformly distinguished the administration of the Government, of Massachusetts.
A large majority of the legal voters of the Commonwealth ever have been, and
still are, attached to those principles, and when they vote at all, vote to
uphold them. But the fact that this Whig majority is known to exist, tends oftentimes
to beget, in those who compose that majority, a feeling of apathy and false
security highly dangerous to the continuance of our party ascendancy. This is
emphatically the case at the present moment. Having come out from the excited
political contest of the last year, crowned with a victory almost unexampled
in its decisiveness and brilliancy, it is difficult to bring the mind to believe,
that danger is so soon to be apprehended from our vanquished foe. Yet that danger
is imminent and threatening. The Locos taking courage from a supposed disaffection
in our ranks, and emboldened by a temporary advantage gained in one or two of
our sister States, have adopted, and are acting upon, a system of party organization
and discipline, well calculated to bring out their whole strength at the polls,
and they already boast, with seeming confidence, that they will revolutionize
the Old Bay State, and again place Marcus Morton in the Gubernatorial Chair.
The Whig State Central Committee, deeply impressed with a sense of the urgent
necessity of meeting the Locos upon the same ground, of opposing organization
to organization, vigilance to vigilance, and activity to activity, have adopted
the following plan of organization and action, and they earnestly call upon
all, whose duty it is to co-operate with them, to render their assistance in
carrying this plan into immediate operation.
1st. The Chairmen of the several County Committees are requested to take immediate
measures for the appointment of efficient County Committees in their respective
Counties, if such are not already appointed, and report their names and places
of residence to the Secretary of the State Central Committee; and it is expected
that these several Committees will meet at once for organization and action.
2d. It is the duty of each County Committee to cause Town Committees, consisting
of as many persons as the size of the town requires, to be appointed in each
town, which Town Committees shall forthwith proceed to organize their several
towns into districts, under Sub-Committees if required; and the Town Committees
shall forthwith appoint one of their number as Secretary, whose duty is shall
be to conduct the correspondence of the Committee, to keep the Chairman of the
County Committees informed of all matters of interest which occur in the towns,
and to reply to all inquiries which may be addressed to them by direction of
the County Committees:-- the Town Committees shall also procure copies of the
list of voters in their respective towns, which lists shall be by them fully
revised and corrected, and a check or mark placed against the name of each voter,
designating his politics, whether Whig or Loco.
3d. The Town Committee shall, as far as practicable, by discreet measures,
ascertain the political views of those considered doubtful, and for which party
they will cast their votes. And abstracts from the lists, so marked, and all
the facts they may otherwise obtain, shall be placed in the hands of the Chairman
of each County Committee, with all practicable despatch. |