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
