To charge the Liberal Republicans with apostasy because they had the moral courage to disown and denounce these men was to invent a definition of the term which would have made all the great apostates of history "honorable men.
Julian argues that denouncing corrupt politicians should not be seen as a betrayal but as a moral stand.
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Something more than empty promises and windy declamation was necessary, and that something, in an evil hour, was supplied by the Democrats themselves.
In the light of this fact alone, it is impossible to account for the perfectly unbounded and irrepressible enthusiasm which swept over the land during the campaign, and so signally routed the forces of Democracy.
The movement of 1840 was necessarily transient and provisional, while underneath its clatter and nonsense was a real issue.
It was a confession of Congressional incompetence to deal with a problem which Congress alone had the right to solve.
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