Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 3

[122] to Brookline to call on Winthrop; and the latter, as survivor, paid in 1874, before the Massachusetts Historical Society, a cordial tribute to the memory of the dead senator. If the order had been reversed, the eulogist of Fessenden would have been the eulogist of Winthrop.¹

Sumner attended, in September, 1846, the Whig caucus in Boston which was called to elect delegates to the Whig State convention, and was chosen one of the delegation to which the Whigs of the city were entitled. This was the first time he had taken part in a caucus or meeting which had in view the nomination of candidates for public office. Here, as in other Whig meetings held at the time in Masssachusetts, one section sought to maintain the supremacy of the former issues, particularly the tariff; while another was pushing to the front the questions growing out of slavery and the Mexican War. Mr. Lawrence dwelt on the material interests at stake in the election, and Sumner urged the moral issues which demanded attention. On the evening before the convention, which was to meet in Boston, the Whig delegates held a conference, or ‘festive entertainment,’ at the United States Hotel, where Mr. Lawrence expressed his desire that the convention should adopt ‘a platform broad enough to include all the Whigs of the United States,’—by which he was understood to mean one which would not emphasize the slavery question to an extent which would repel the co-operation of Southern Whigs. Sumner was present at the conference, but did not speak.

The convention met in Faneuil Hall, September 23. It was largely attended, and the session lasted from ten in the morning till nearly seven in the evening. No issue was made as to the organization or as to candidates. Charles Hudson, who had voted against the Mexican war bill in Congress, was chosen chairman, and Governor Briggs was renominated. There was, however, a general expectation, which had been noted in the newspapers, that there was to be a struggle as to the platform between the commercial and the antislavery Whigs,—between those who regarded the maintenance of a protective tariff and the unity of the Whig party as paramount, and those who regarded the questions growing out of slavery and the war as