Such, Gentlemen, are the circumstances connected with the nomination of General Taylor. I only repeat, that those who had the greatest agency originally in bringing him before the people were Whig conventions and Whig meetings in the several States, Free States, and that a great majority of that convention which nominated him in Philadelphia was from the Free States, and might have rejected him if they had chosen, and selected anybody else on whom they could have united.
This is the case, Gentlemen, as far as I can discern it, and exercising upon it as impartial a judgment as I can form,—this is the case presented to the Whigs, so far as respects the personal fitness and personal character of General Taylor, and the circumstances which have caused his nomination. If we were weighing the propriety of nominating such a person to the Presidency, it would be one thing; if we are considering the expediency, or I may say the necessity (which to some minds may seem to be the case), of well-meaning and patriotic Whigs supporting him after he is nominated, that is quite another thing.
This leads us to the consideration of what the Whigs of Massachusetts are to do, or such of them as do not see fit to support General Taylor. Of course they must vote for General Cass, or they must vote for Mr. Van Buren, or they must omit to vote at all. I agree that there are cases in which, if we do not know in what direction to move, we ought to stand still till we do. I admit that there are cases in which, if one does not know what to do, he had better not do he knows not what. But on a question so important to ourselves and the country, on a question of a popular election under constitutional forms, in which it is impossible that every man's private judgment can prevail, or every man's private choice succeed, it becomes a question of conscientious duty and patriotism, what it is best to do upon the whole.
Under the practical administration of the Constitution of the United States, there cannot be a great range of personal choice in regard to the candidate for the Presidency. In order that their votes may be effective, men must give them for some one of those who are prominently before the public. This is the necessary result of our forms of government and of the provisions of the Constitution. The people are therefore brought sometimes to the necessity of choosing between candidates neither of whom would be their original, personal choice.
Now, what is the contingency? What is the alternative presented to the Whigs of Massachusetts? In my judgment, fellow-citizens, it is simply this; the question is between General Taylor and General Cass. And that is the only question. I am no more skilled to foresee political occurrences than others. I judge only for myself. But, in my opinion, there is not the least probability of any other result than the choice of General Taylor or General Cass. I know that the enthusiasm of a new-formed party, that the popularity of a new-formed name, without communicating any new-formed idea, may lead men to think that the sky is to fall, and that larks are suddenly to be taken. I entertain no such expectations. I speak without disrespect of the Free Soil party. I have read their platform, and though I think there are some unsound places in it, I can stand on it pretty well. But I see nothing in it both new and valuable. "What is valuable is not new, and what is new is not valuable." If the term Free Soil party, or Free Soil men, designate those who are fixed, and unalterably fixed, in favor of the restriction of slavery, are so to-day and were so yesterday, and have been so for some time, then I hold myself to be as good a Free Soil man as any of the Buffalo Convention. I pray to know who is to put beneath my feet a freer soil than that upon which I have stood ever since I have been in public life? I pray to know who is to make my lips freer than they always have been, or to inspire into my breast a more resolute and fixed determination to resist the advances and encroachments of the slave power, than has inhabited it since I for the first time opened my mouth in the councils of the country? The gentlemen at Buffalo have placed at the head of their party Mr. Van Buren, a gentleman for whom I have all the respect that I ought to entertain for one with whom I have been associated, in some degree, in public life for many years, and who has held the highest offices in the country. But really, speaking for myself, if I were to express confidence in Mr. Van Buren and his politics on any question, and most especially this very question of slavery, I think the scene would border upon the ludicrous, if not upon the contemptible. I never proposed any thing in my life of a general and public nature, that Mr. Van Buren did not oppose. Nor has it happened to me to support any important measure proposed by him. If he and I now were to find ourselves together under the Free Soil flag, I am sure that, with his accustomed good nature, he would laugh. If nobody were present, we should both laugh at the strange occurrences and stranger jumbles of political life that should have brought us to sit down cosily and snugly, side by side, on the same platform. That the leader of the Free Spoil party should so suddenly have become the leader of the Free Soil party would be a joke to shake his sides and mine.
Gentlemen, my first acquaintance in public life with Mr. Van Buren was when he was pressing with great power the election of Mr. Crawford to the Presidency, against Mr. Adams. Mr. Crawford was not elected, and Mr. Adams was. Mr. Van Buren was in the Senate nearly the whole of that administration; and during the remainder of it he was Governor of the State of New York. It is notorious that he was the soul and centre, throughout the whole of Mr. Adams's term, of the opposition made to him. He did more to prevent Mr. Adams's re-election in 1828, and to obtain General Jackson's election, than any other man,—yes, than any ten other men in the country.
General Jackson was chosen, and Mr. Van Buren was appointed his Secretary of State. It so happened that in July, 1829, Mr. McLane went to England to arrange the controverted, difficult, and disputed point on the subject of the colonial trade. Mr. Adams had held a high tone on that subject. He had demanded, on the ground of reciprocity and right, the introduction of our products into all parts of the British territory, freely, in our own vessels, since Great Britain was allowed to bring her produce into the United States upon the same terms. Mr. Adams placed this demand upon the ground of reciprocity and justice. Great Britain would not yield. Mr. Van Buren, in his instructions to Mr. McLane, told him to yield that question of right, and to solicit the free admission of American produce into the British colonies, on the ground of privilege and favor; intimating that there had been a change of parties, and that this favor ought not to be refused to General Jackson's administration because it had been demanded on the ground of right by Mr. Adams's. This is the sum and substance of the instruction.
Well, Gentlemen, it was one of the most painful duties of my life, on account of this, to refuse my assent to Mr. Van Buren's nomination. It was novel in our history, when an administration changes, for the new administration to seek to obtain privileges from a foreign power on the assertion that they have abandoned the ground of their predecessors. I suppose that such a course is held to be altogether undignified by all public men. When I went into the Department of State under General Harrison, I found in the conduct of my predecessor many things that I could have wished had been otherwise. Did I retract a jot or tittle of what Mr. Forsyth had said? I took the case as he had left it, and conducted it upon the principles which he left. I should have considered that I disgraced myself if I had said, "Pray, my Lord Ashburton, we are more rational persons than our predecessors, we are more considerate than they, and intend to adopt an entirely opposite policy. Consider, my dear Lord, how much more friendly, reasonable, and amiable we are than our predecessors."
But now, on this very subject of the extension of the slave power, I would by no means do the least injustice to Mr. Van Buren. If he has come up to some of the opinions expressed in the platform of the Buffalo Convention, I am very glad of it. I do not mean to say that there may not be very good reasons for those of his own party who cannot conscientiously vote for General Cass to vote for him, because I think him much the least dangerous of the two. But, in truth, looking at Mr. Van Buren's conduct as President of the United States, I am amazed to find that he should be placed at the head of a party professing to be, beyond all other parties, friends of liberty and enemies of African slavery in the Southern States. Why, the very first thing that Mr. Van Buren did after he was President was to declare, that, if Congress interfered with slavery in the District of Columbia, he would apply the veto to their bills. Mr. Van Buren, in his inaugural address, quotes the following expression from his letter accepting his nomination: "I must go into the Presidential chair the inflexible and uncompromising opponent of every attempt on the part of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia against the wishes of the slave-holding States; and also with a determination equally decided to resist the slightest interference with it in the States where it exists." He then proceeds: "I submitted also to my fellow-citizens, with fulness and frankness, the reasons which led me to this determination. The result authorizes me to believe that they have been approved and are confided in by a majority of the people of the United States, including those whom they most immediately affect. It now only remains to add, that no bill conflicting with these views can even receive my constitutional sanction."
In the next place, we know that Mr. Van Buren's casting vote was given for a law of very doubtful propriety,—a law to allow postmasters to open the mails and see if there was any incendiary matter in them, and, if so, to destroy it. I do not say that there was no constitutional power to pass such a law. Perhaps the people of the South thought it was necessary to protect themselves from incitements to insurrection. So far as any thing endangers the lives and property of the South, so far I agree that there may be such legislation in Congress as shall prevent such results.