MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS, WHIGS OF MASSA

CHUSETTS:

RATEFUL for the honor done me in this early call

G shall endeavor

with sincerity and frankness on the duties of the Whig party. It is of Duties that I shall speak.

On the first notice that our meeting was to be in Boston, many were disposed to regret that the country was not selected instead, believing that the opinions of the country, free as its bracing air, more than those of Boston, were in harmony with the tone becoming us at the present crisis. In the country is the spirit of freedom, in the city the spirit of commerce; and though these two spirits may at times act in admirable conjunction and with irresistible strength, yet it sometimes occurs that the generous and unselfish impulses of the one are checked. and controlled by the careful calculations of the other. Even Right and Liberty are, in some minds, of less significance than dividends and dollars.

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But I am happy that the Convention is convoked in Faneuil Hall, a place vocal with inspiring accents; and though on other occasions words have been uttered here which the lover of morals, of freedom, and humanity must regret, these walls, faithful only to Freedom, refuse to echo them. Whigs of Massachusetts, in Faneuil Hall assembled, must be true to this early scene of patriot struggles; they must be true to their own name, which has descended from the brave men who took part in those struggles.

We are a Convention of Whigs. And who are the Whigs? Some may say they are supporters of the Tariff; others, that they are advocates of Internal Improvements,

of measures to restrict the Veto Power, or it may be of a Bank. All these are now, or have been, prominent articles of the party. But this enumeration does not do justice to the Whig character.

The Whigs, as their name imports, are, or ought to be, the party of Freedom. They seek, or should seek, on all occasions, to carry out fully and practically the principles of our institutions. Those principles which our fathers declared, and sealed with their blood, their Whig children should seek to manifest in acts. The Whigs, therefore, reverence the Declaration of Independence, as embodying the vital truths of Freedom, especially that great truth, "that all men are created equal." They reverence the Constitution of the United States, and seek to guard it against infractions, believing that under the Constitution Freedom can be best preserved. They reverence the Union, believing that the peace, happiness, and welfare of all depend upon this blessed bond. They reverence the public faith, and require that it shall be punctiliously kept in all laws, charters, and obligations. They reverence the principles of morality, truth, justice, right. They seek to advance their country rather than individuals, and to promote the welfare of the people rather than of leaders. A member of such an association, founded on the highest moral sentiments, recognizing conscience and benevolence as animating ideas, is not open to the accusation that he "to party gave up what was meant for mankind,”- since all the interests of the party must be coincident and commensurate with the manifold interests of humanity.

Such is, as I trust, the Whig party of Massachusetts. It refuses to identify itself exclusively with those measures of transient policy which, like the Bank, may be

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come "obsolete ideas," but connects itself with everlasting principles which can never fade or decay. Doing this, it does not neglect other things, as the Tariff, or Internal Improvements; but it treats them as subordinate. Far less does it show indifference to the Constitution or the Union; for it seeks to render these guardians and representatives of the principles to which we are attached.

The Whigs have been called by you, Mr. President, conservatives. In a just sense, they should be conservatives, not of forms only, but of substance, not of the letter only, but of the living spirit. The Whigs should be conservators of the ancestral spirit, conservators of the animating ideas in which our institutions were born. They should profess that truest and highest conservatism which watches, guards, and preserves the great principles of Truth, Right, Freedom, and Humanity. Such a conservatism is not narrow and exclusive, but broad and expansive. It is not trivial and bigoted, but manly and generous. It is the conservatism of '76.

Let me say, then, that the Whigs of Massachusetts are I hope it is not my wish only that is father to the thought the party which seeks the establishment of Truth, Freedom, Right, and Humanity, under the Constitution of the United States, and by the Union of the States. They are Unionists, Constitutionalists, Friends of the Right.

The question here arises, How shall this party, inspired by these principles, now act? The answer is easy. In strict accordance with their principles. It must utter them with distinctness, and act upon them with energy.

The party will naturally express opposition to the present Administration for its treacherous course on

the tariff, and for its interference by veto with internal improvements; but it will be more alive to evils of greater magnitude, - the unjust and unchristian war with Mexico, which is not less absurd than wicked, and, beyond this, the institution of Slavery.

The time, I believe, has gone by, when the question is asked, What has the North to do with Slavery? It might almost be answered, that, politically, it has little to do with anything else, so are all the acts of our Government connected, directly or indirectly, with this institution. Slavery is everywhere. Appealing to the Constitution, it enters the Halls of Congress, in the disproportionate representation of the Slave States. It holds its disgusting mart at Washington, in the shadow of the Capitol, under the legislative jurisdiction of the Nation, of the North as well as the South. It sends its miserable victims over the high seas, from the ports of Virginia to the ports of Louisiana, beneath the protecting flag of the Republic. It presumes to follow into the Free States those fugitives who, filled with the inspiration of Freedom, seek our altars for safety; nay, more, with profane hands it seizes those who have never known the name of slave, freemen of the North, and dooms them to irremediable bondage. It insults and expels from its jurisdiction honored representatives of Massachusetts, seeking to secure for her colored citizens the peaceful safeguard of the Union. It assumes at pleasure to build up new slaveholding States, striving perpetually to widen its area, while professing to extend the area of Freedom. It has brought upon the country war with Mexico, with its enormous expenditures and more enormous guilt. By the spirit of union among its supporters, it controls the affairs of

Government, interferes with the cherished interests of the North, enforcing and then refusing protection to her manufactures, makes and unmakes Presidents,usurps to itself the larger portion of all offices of honor and profit, both in the army and navy, and also in the civil department, and stamps upon our whole country the character, before the world, of that monstrous anomaly and mockery, a slaveholding republic, with the living truths of Freedom on its lips and the dark mark of Slavery on its brow.

In opposition to Slavery, Massachusetts has already, to a certain extent, done what becomes her character as a free Commonwealth. By successive resolutions of her Legislature, she has called for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and for the abolition of the slave-trade between the States; and she has also proposed an amendment of the Constitution, putting the South upon an equality with the North in Congressional representation. More than this, her judiciary, always pure, fearless, and upright, has inflicted upon Slavery the brand of reprobation. I but recall a familiar fact, when I refer to the opinion of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, where it is expressly declared that "slavery is contrary to natural right, to the principles of justice, humanity, and sound policy." This is the law of Massachusetts.

And shall this Commonwealth continue in any way to sustain an institution which its laws declare to be contrary to natural right, justice, humanity, and sound policy? Shall Whigs support what is contrary to the fundamental principles of the party? Here the consciences of good men respond to the judgment of the

1 18 Pick. Rep. 215.