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who were in interest or feeling identified with the commercial Whigs of Boston.
Mr. Appleton said to Sumner, as he finished his speech and was stepping from the platform, ‘A good speech for Virginia, but out of place here;’ to which Sumner replied, ‘If good for Virginia, it is good for Boston, as we have our responsibilities for slavery.’1
Winthrop, being called for with enthusiasm, followed Sumner in a different vein,—dwelling upon the measures on which Whigs in the North and in the South were agreed; giving prominence to their views on the custody of the public money, the exercise of the veto power, the improvement of rivers and harbors, and particularly on the protection of manufactures as affected by the repeal of the protective tariff of 1842 and the passage of the revenue tariff of 1846.
It was his evident purpose to keep the party in the line of its former action, and to arrest the tendency to a distinctively antislavery policy.
Anticipating the contest on the resolutions, he said: ‘Nor am I ready for any political organizations or platforms less broad and comprehensive than those which many include and uphold the whole Whig party of the United States.’
He, however, avowed his opposition to acquisitions of territory for the purpose of extending slavery or adding slave States to the Union.
He spoke with evident feeling, as was observed at the time, and showed in more than one expression that he resented the criticisms which Sumner had made upon his vote for the war bill.2 The two speeches, less by what they expressed than by their general tone and the responses which they met from diverse elements of the party, indicated clearly two divisions no longer bound together by any tie of sympathy.
The next step was the consideration of the resolutions, which were reported from a committee by J. Thomas Stevenson, one of the commercial Whigs, and according to the fashion of the day were extended to an extreme length.3 In deference to an exacting
1 Winthrop subsequently wrote of the speech that it was ‘an inflammatory appeal on the subject of slavery.’ （‘Addresses and Speeches,’ vol. i. p. 770.) But as now read, it does not appear to go beyond an earnest statement of a pending issue, or exceed in fervor and emphasis what John Quincy Adams had repeatedly said in Congress and elsewhere.
2 ‘Addresses and Speeches,’ vol. i. pp. 551-563. A passage on p. 560 was understood at the time to refer to Sumner. What is said on p. 551 as to the place of meeting is a reference to what Sumner had said in his speech concerning it. On p 562 there is per. haps a reference to his toast, July 4, 1845, which Sumner may also have had in mind in the concluding passage of his speech.
3 The resolutions had been agreed upon the evening before in a meeting of the Whig State committee, in which E. R. Hoar, finding them defective on the slavery question, insisted on a more positive declaration, and against Stevenson's spirited opposition carried in the committee, with the assistance of Judge Hopkinson, the insertion of a paragraph on the subject. This amendment made the difference between the two drafts, which were discussed before the convention, not very discernible; and when the point as to whether there was a material difference was made in the debate, and the reading of the declaration in question was called for, Stevenson read in a high, triumphant, and sonorous tone the paragraph which had been inserted at Hoar's instance but against his own protest. E. H. Hoar, while in full accord politically with the supporters of Mr. Phillips's set of resolutions, was satisfied with those reported by the committee.
Cambridge, MA. Press of John Wilson and Son. 1877.
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