Third Party Movement, 1841

Of this movement, from the first hour of its conception to the present, I have spoken in terms of disapprobation; and see and feel no inducement to change my opinion.  It is an attempt to make bricks without straw  — to propel a locomotive engine without water.  As an act of folly, it is ludicrous; and as a measure of policy, it is pernicious; as  a political contrivance, it is useless …. A political contest differs essentially from one that is moral.  In the latter,  one may chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight.  In the former, profligacy and virtue, good and evil, right and wrong, meet on equal  terms.  Success wholly depends on numerical superiority.  One vote is just as good as another; the slaveholder, or the apologist of slavery, has as much power as the abolitionist, or the friend of humanity…..”  The article gives 8 reasons to support the view of the editor; it concludes with a resolution against the party, adopted at the last meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and signed by James G. Birney,  E. Wright, Jr., and Henry B. Stanton (Garrison, writing in the Liberator, January 8, 1841)