The five preceding columns are mainly
occupied with an outline and defence of the action of the Philadelphia
Nominating Convention, and a discussion of the slavery
question--questions we had discussed in this work before this document
came to hand. Mr. Nelson concludes thus:

"The Foreigners and Catholics were directly appealed to in the
Presidential elections of 1848 and 1852. Who does not remember
that, immediately preceding the election in 1844, fraudulent
naturalization papers were manufactured in New York? Who has
forgotten the Plaquemines fraud in Louisiana? Who has not heard
of the abuse of Mr. Frelinghuysen for no other cause than that
he was the President of the American Bible Society?

"But, without dwelling upon other illustrations, look to the
Democratic platform of 1852, and read the 8th section of the
third resolution, which is in the following words:

"'That the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the
Declaration of Independence and sanctioned in the Constitution,
which makes ours the land of liberty and the asylum of the
oppressed of every nation, have ever been cardinal principles
in the Democratic faith, and every attempt to abridge the
present privilege of becoming citizens and the owners of soil
among us, ought to be resisted with the same spirit which swept
the alien and sedition laws from our statute books.'

"During the last election in Tennessee, it was often said by
Democrats that they were just as much opposed to the
immigration of foreign criminals and paupers as members of the
American party, but would not attach themselves to the latter
because of their objections to its organization. But the
Democratic Platform of 1852 contains no exception against
criminals and paupers. The naturalization laws have, in
practice, been found inadequate to their exclusion, and the
platform, in effect, avows unqualified adherence to them
without _abridgement_ or modification.

"These laws are, in substance, declared to have '_ever been
cardinal principles_ in the Democratic faith.' By its own
avowal, the Democratic party is responsible for giving
encouragement to the whole policy of foreign immigration. If
that policy has flooded the country with criminals and paupers;
if it has produced riots and bloodshed in our large cities;