It was an occasion that tried the sagacity and the discretion of honest men, and I have always felt great charity both for his advocates and his opponents;—each being able to make out so plausible a case. The course which the Connecticut clergyman took on that occasion always commended itself to me. He voted the Taylor electoral ticket, but indorsed a prayer on the back of his ballot, saying that he was painfully uncertain as to the course of duty, and imploring that his vote might be sanctified for the good of the country.
But I am happy to avail myself of this, and of all opportunities, to do justice to the name of General Taylor. He turned out a very different man from what his friends or his foes supposed him to be. I believe he desired freedom for all the territories; and, could he have been permitted to carry out his own plans, he would have secured not only the freedom of the territories, but would also have consummated all the great national measures of the party that brought him into power. Mr. Clay threw the first stumbling-block in his way, by his compromise scheme. This, alone, might have been surmounted. But Mr. Webster’s apostasy, on the seventh of March, turned the tide of battle. It broke up General Taylor’s phalanx, both north and south. It roused the drooping and just yielding spirits of the slave power to frantic exertion. An enemy on the field General Taylor was always ready to meet; but he was not prepared for treachery in his own camp. Still, he maintained his ground resolutely, until struck down by the power that conquers the conquerors. There are many who believe it was Mr. Webster’s perfidy, with the nameless labors and anxieties that came in its train, which caused General Taylor’s death. It remains to be seen whether the political Macbeth shall succeed to the Banquo he spirited away, though all the “weird” brethren of the slave mart and of the “Union and Safety Committees” still tempt him onward by their incantations.
But it was under the circumstances of General Taylor’s nomination, and not of his death, that a portion of the Free Soilers parted company with the Whigs; as another portion did with the Democrats, because of General Cass’s avowed subserviency to the south,—and the conduct of all men is to be judged by the circumstances contemporary with their acts, and not subsequent to them.
If, however, there are those who judge of motives by results, this certainly can be said in vindication of the Free Soil party, that the now acting President of the United States, who came in on General Taylor’s ticket, and is now completing his presidential term, has done more for slavery than the Free Soil party ever predicted or feared would or could be done by the candidates whom they opposed. Even now, when the third year of the presidential term is but half spent, the Whig administration, aided by many leaders in the Whig party, is carrying out, with a relentless hand, and a more relentless heart, worse pro-slavery measures than the Free Soil party ever charged upon them during the canvass, or ever believed or conceived they could commit.
Such was the position of affairs in Massachusetts in 1848, when, almost for the first time within the memory of man, the Whigs failed, at the polls, to elect electors of President and Vice President.
Let us dwell for a moment on that crisis. It was during the canvass of 1848 that the Whigs became so amorous towards the rank and file of the Free Soil party. No knight-errant ever protested more fidelity, or vowed to do more valorous deeds in his mistress’ cause. Than some of them, no dove ever cooed with a sweeter gurgle. Than others, no stag ever offended with a ranker breath. They wooed them by daylight, by moonlight, and by torchlight. They swore belief not only in all the Free Soil scriptures, but in the traditions of its rabbins. The Ordinance of ’87 they loved; the Wilmot proviso they loved better; and would the coy damsel of Free Soilism but consent to the affiance, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia should gladden the espousals. Every Whig rally, from ward and school district meetings to monster mass meetings, resounded with Mr. Webster’s slogan, or war-cry, “No more slave states! No more slave representation in the Congress of the United States!” The Boston Daily Advertiser, the Courier, and the Journal, which are now south of South Carolina, in the impiety of the grounds on which they defend the wrongs and the aggressions of slavery, and shout on slave hunts over Pilgrim burial grounds,—all gave back the cry, with three times three, “No more slave states! No more slave representation in the Congress of the United States!” At all their conventions, the Whigs “resolved and re-resolved,” and—but I hope we may not be compelled to finish the line. You were told there was no more need of a Free Soil party in Massachusetts than of two suns in the heavens. The Whigs were the true Free Soilers; they held Free Soilism as a hereditament, or as an heir-loom long possessed by the ancient family of the Whigs. Even Mr. Webster, who had very much withdrawn from public gaze after the Philadelphia convention, and who, like Achilles, sat “sulking in his tent” and musing over the lost Briseis of a nomination, was at last tempted, by a succession of brilliant retaining fees, to come forth and reason with these recusant and contumacious Free Soilers face to face. And what did he say? Addressing himself distinctively to Free Soilers, he said, “If, my friends, the term ‘Free Soil’ party, or ‘Free Soil’ men, is meant to designate one who has been fixed, unalterable, to-day, yesterday, and for some time past, in opposition to slavery extension, then I may claim to be, and may hold myself, as good a Free Soil man as any member of that Buffalo convention. I pray to know where is their soil freer than that on which I have stood? I pray to know what words they can use, or can dictate to me, freer than those which have dwelt upon my lips. I pray to know with what feelings they can inspire my breast more resolute and firm in resisting slavery EXTENSION OR ENCROACHMENT than have inhabited my bosom since the first time I opened my mouth in public life.”
These, gentlemen, were his words, spoken at Marshfield, on the first day of September, 1848. If he were here to-day to address you, could he speak any words more grateful to your ears? If only truth and a heart were in that language, could he speak any thing better?
It was by such false pretences as these that thousands, and I doubt not tens of thousands, of men wholly penetrated and imbued with Free Soil principles, were kept in the Whig ranks. I was one of them. I had faith in men; and I have it still,—with important exceptions however. The needle points to the pole; but if you bring a huge black mass of pig iron and place by its side, it trembles, yet deviates, like a man struggling to be virtuous before overwhelming temptations. Remove the disturbing force, and it returns to its fidelity. So, when the next presidential election is over, I believe the great body of the rank and file of the Whig party in Massachusetts will return to their duty; for I venture to say, that if the Whigs of Massachusetts, in November, 1848, could have foreseen the present position of their party, and the demoralization which its leaders have been able to work in it, not one third of them, no, not one quarter of them, could have been induced to vote the ticket that elected Mr. Fillmore, brought in the present cabinet, and brought on the present disastrous policy.
But, gentlemen, I am occupying too much of your time. I will add but a few more words. I said the address and resolutions of the Whig State Convention, held at Springfield, last week, brought me here. I have read them with profound sorrow. It was the first Whig convention that ever met in Massachusetts that did not at least put forth some noble doctrines in favor of freedom, whether they meant to stand by them or not. Yes, even the convention of 1850,—only one year ago,—passed the following:—
“Resolved, That Massachusetts avows her unalterable determination to maintain all the principles and purposes she has in times past affirmed and reäffirmed, in relation to the extension of slavery.”