42

when this excitement shall be raised to such a height as, blinding
the people to their true interests and security, it may clutch and
wield this instrument of ruin and destruction to all the South!

The repudiation or pretermission of the twelfth article of the
Philadelphia Platform by the National Council of this party, con-
vened in the same city so lately as the 20th of February of the
present year, in the new platform then adopted, as appears from
the public prints on the 21st, affords the public now just enough of
light on this subject to make the " darkness visible."

The hope had been excited in some, by the conflicting explana-
tions heretofore attempted or offered to the public by members of
the order, of the 8th article of their platform of June, 1835, and
of the 14th article of the same, (see platform appended,) which
they have tried to make the public receive and consider, as doing
away with their secrecy, when, in fact, it merely says that their
principles may be openly avowed, and that each member shall be
at liberty to make known the existence of the order, and the fact that
he himself is a member, (he is not to name as such any other mem-
ber,) and recommends that there be no concealment of the places of
meeting of subordinate councils;—nothing said of liberty to tell
what is done in those councils, or the oath taken there, or the mu-
tual obligation of and to the different degrees of the order, or the
open disclosure of any of their purposes—all these are left to rest
still under the sworn pledge of secrecy, contained in the formula
of the oaths set forth in the first part of this report. The hope,
it is repealed, was excited by the unsatisfactory explanations which
had been given, or attempted to be given of these articles, that this
recent Grand Council would have made these explanations perfect.
That they would have annulled all those oaths, and released all the
members of the order from the obligations they impose; that
they would have given full liberty to all, to have freely and fully
disclosed every thing relating to the order; not only their principles,
but also their purposes, aims and objects; not only the fact of the
membership of the individual member himself, but of any or all
the members; not only the place of meeting of subordinate coun-
cils, but the oaths, acts and doings in them, and thus cease to be a
"secret political society," and become in fact what it has been pre-
tended that they arc, an open political party, having no conceal-
ments, but openly and boldly avowing everything.

But this hope is disappointed, and we find not one word is said
about rescinding the oaths, but they are left to bind with all their
force, to the continued observance of all the pledges and obliga-
tions, except the privilege is renewed and the declaration made in
their 15th article of "a free and open discussion of all political
principles contained in our (their) platform."

The eighth article of the platform of June, 1855, appears to be
also pretermitted in this new platform, and a substitution in its place

I