Autobiography of John E. Massey (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS My father was an " old-line Whig," and, believing he must be right, I accepted his political sentiments. After I commenced practicing law I made speeches in advocacy of the election of Henry Clay. When I entered the ministry of the Gospel I ceased active participation in politics. Rockingham County, where I resided for about ten years, was the " Tenth Legion of Democracy "; and although there were, I think, at least ten times as many Democrats in the county as there were Whigs, I voted none but Whig tickets. Just before becoming a citizen of Albemarle, which was largely a Whig county, I visited my brother Joseph, who was then pastor of the First Baptist Church in Bellingham, Massachusetts. I traveled through the Middle and New England States, and what I saw and heard during my sojourn in them convinced me that none but the Democrats were friends of the South. This led me to examine more carefully than I had done before the difference between the two parties. I found the fundamental difference between them to be their different constructions of the Constitution of the United States, and their respective estimates of their obligations to obey it. Democrats advocated strict construction of the Constitution and compliance with itsrequirements: Whigs advocated latitudinous construction of it, and did not seem willing to be governed by its requirements and restrictions. From this loose idea of fundamental law they were naturally led into loose legislation and sectional prejudices. The Democratic party was national: the Whig party, in the North, was sectional. These facts caused me to change my political opinions and affiliations, and kept me in the minority?a Whig in the Democratic county of Rockingham, and a Democrat in the Whig coun...