Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 2

[27] emphatic, from leading individuals are easily doffed aside as mere outbreaks of individual enthusiasm. Men judge the Commonwealth by the ballot-box. When she launches her crusade, say they, we shall see her drop anchor in the legislature. [Cheers.] Thank God, November has ripened this evidence for us. We have set up a mile-stone of progress which the blindest can feel, if he cannot see. [Cheers.] That a large party should follow Mr. Webster anywhere is not surprising. You know, Mr. Chairman, I was once among that crowd who are said to be “bred to the bar,” --and very kind of them surely, since the bar is never bread to them. Well, sir, I remember an insurance case which illustrates my meaning. You recollect that when an insured article is lost from any defect of its own, the insurers are not liable. Now in carrying some sheep from one port to another, the ram, getting frightened, leaped overboard, and the whole flock followed. [Cheers.] The insurers pleaded, in defence of a suit brought against them, that it was an inherent defect in the article. [Cheers.] Now when Mr. Webster, standing on that majestic height whence the hopes of the North, “with airy tongues that syllable men's names,” summon him to the noblest task ever given to man, when such an one plunged into the Secretary of Stateship and nowhere [cheers], it was to be expected that a large portion of the old Whig party should follow him. It is an inherent defect of the article. [Loud laughter.] Thank Heaven, however, that when even he shouldered the Fugitive Slave Bill, there were so many fugitives from his own party that hardly enough were left to count them. [Cheers.]

Now, at least, the question is settled where Massachusetts stands; so unequivocally, that even the Daily Advertiser, which never announced the nomination of