In citing the action of Joshua R. Giddings as an anti-third-party
man, Mr. Roosevelt is not altogether fortunate. Subsequent to the
presidential campaign of 1844, the third-party Abolitionists held a
convention in Pittsburg, in which Giddings was a leading actor. As
chairman of the committee on platform, he submitted a resolution
declaring that both of the old parties were "hopelessly corrupt and
unworthy of confidence."
The Abolitionists could not see that they were under obligation to
either of the old parties, believing they could do far better service
for the cause they championed by standing up and being counted as
candidates honestly representing their principles. They fought both of
the old parties, and finally beat them. They killed the Whig party out
and out, and so far crippled the Democrats that they have been limping
ever since. Their action, in the long run, as attested by the verdict
of results, proved itself to be not only the course of abstract right,
but of political expediency.
In 1840, the vote of the third-party Abolitionists, then for the first
time in the political field, was 7000; in 1844 it was 60,000, and in
1848 it was nearly 300,000.
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