Let me say a word respecting the position of the Representative from Boston. I speak only of his position, not of his personal character. Let him, and all men, have the benefit of the distinction between their personal character, and official conduct. Mr. Winthrop is a consistent whig; a representative of the idea of the whig party North, Protection and Slavery. When he first went into Congress, it was distinctly understood that he was not going to meddle with the matter of slavery; the tariff was the thing. All this was consistent. It is to be supposed that a Northern whig will put the mills of the North before the black men of the South: and "Property before persons," might safely be writ on the banner of the whig party, North or South.
Mr. Winthrop seems a little uneasy in his position. Some time ago he complained of a "Nest of vipers" in Boston, who had broken their own teeth in gnawing a file; meaning the "vipers" in the free soil party, I suppose, whose teeth, however, have a little edge still left on them. He finds it necessary to define his position, and show that he has kept up his communication with the base-line of operations from which he started. This circumstance is a little suspicious.
Unlike Mr. Webster, Mr. Winthrop seems to think religion is a good thing in politics, for in his speech of May 7th, he says—"I acknowledge my allegiance to the whole Constitution of the United States.... And whenever I perceive a plain conflict of jurisdiction and authority between the Constitution of my country and the laws of my God, my course is clear. I shall resign my office, whatever it may be, and renounce all connection with public service of any sort." That is fair and manly. He will not hold a position under the Constitution of the United States which is inconsistent with the Constitution of the Universe. But he says—"There are provisions in the Constitution [of the United States, he means, not of the universe], which involve us in painful obligations, and from which some of us would rejoice to be relieved; and this [the restoration of fugitive slaves], is one of them. But there is none, none, in my judgment, which involves any conscientious or religious difficulty." So he has no "conscientious or religious" objection to return a fugitive slave. He thinks the Constitution of the United States "avoids the idea that there can be property in man," but recognizes "that there may be property in the service or labor of man." But when it is property in the service of man without value received by the servant, and a claim which continues to attach to a man and his children forever, it looks very like the idea of property in man. At any rate, there is only a distinction in the words, no difference in the things. To claim the sum of the accidents, all and several of a thing, is practically to claim the thing.
Mr. Winthrop once voted for the Wilmot Proviso, in its application to the Oregon Territory. Some persons have honored him for it, and even contended that he also was a free soiler. He wipes off that calumny by declaring, that he attached that proviso to the Oregon bill for the purpose of defeating the bill itself. "This proviso was one of the means upon which I mainly relied for the purpose." "There can be little doubt," he says, "that this clause had its influence in arresting the bill in the other end of the capitol," where it was "finally lost." That is his apology for appearing to desire to prevent the extension of slavery. It is worth while to remember this.
Unlike Mr. Webster, he thinks slavery may go into New Mexico. "We may hesitate to admit that nature has everywhere [in the new territory] settled the question against slavery." Still he would not now pass the proviso to exclude slavery. It "would ... unite the South as one man, and if it did not actually rend the Union asunder, would create an alienation and irritation in that quarter of the country, which would render the Union hardly worth preserving." "Is there not ample reason for an abatement of the northern tone, for a forbearance of northern urgency upon this subject, without the imputation of tergiversation and treachery?"
Here I am reminded of a remarkable sentence in Mr. Webster's speech at Marshfield, in relation to the northern men who helped to annex Texas. Here it is:—
"For my part, I think that Dough-faces is an epithet not sufficiently reproachful. Now, I think such persons are dough-faces, dough-heads, and dough-souls, that they are all dough; that the coarsest potter may mould them at pleasure to vessels of honor or dishonor, but most readily to vessels of dishonor."
The Representative from Boston, in the year 1850, has small objection to the extension of slave soil. Hearken to his words:—
"I can never put the question of extending slave soil on the same footing with one of directly increasing slavery and multiplying slaves. If a positive issue could ever again be made up for our decision, whether human beings, few or many, of whatever race, complexion or condition, should be freshly subjected to a system of hereditary bondage, and be changed from free men into slaves, I can conceive that no bonds of union, no ties of interest, no cords of sympathy, no consideration of past glory, present welfare, or future grandeur, should be suffered to interfere, for an instant, with our resolute and unceasing resistance to a measure so iniquitous and abominable. There would be a clear, unquestionable moral element in such an issue, which would admit of no compromise, no concession, no forbearance whatever.... A million of swords would leap from their scabbards to assert it, and the Union itself would be shivered like a Prince Rupert's dress in the shock.
"But, Sir, the question whether the institution of slavery, as it already exists, shall be permitted to extend itself over a hundred or a hundred thousand more square miles than it now occupies, is a different question.... It is not, in my judgment, such an issue that conscientious and religious men may not be free to acquiesce in whatever decision may be arrived at by the constituted authorities of the country.... It is not with a view of cooping up slavery ... within limits too narrow for its natural growth;... it is not for the purpose of girding it round with lines of fire, till its sting, like that of the scorpion, shall be turned upon itself,... that I have ever advocated the principles of the Ordinance of 1787."