me which will enable me to pursue it, and throw all embarrassment to the winds. A public man has no occasion to be embarrassed, if he is honest. Himself and his feelings should be to him as nobody and as nothing; the interest of his country must be to him as every thing; he must sink what is personal to himself, making exertions for his country; and it is his ability and readiness to do this which are to mark him as a great or as a little man in time to come.

There were many persons in September, 1841, who found great fault with my remaining in the President's Cabinet. You know, Gentlemen, that twenty years of honest, and not altogether undistinguished service in the Whig cause, did not save me from an outpouring of wrath, which seldom proceeds from Whig pens and Whig tongues against any body. I am, Gentlemen, a little hard to coax, but as to being driven, that is out of the question. I chose to trust my own judgment, and thinking I was at a post where I was in the service of the country, and could do it good, I staid there. And I leave it to you to-day to say, I leave it to my country to say, whether the country would have been better off if I had left also. I have no attachment to office. I have tasted of its sweets, but I have tasted of its bitterness. I am content with what I have achieved; I am more ready to rest satisfied with what is gained, than to run the risk of doubtful efforts for new acquisition.

I suppose I ought to pause here. (Cries of "Go on!") I ought, perhaps, to allude to nothing more, and I will not allude. to any thing further than it may be supposed to concern myself, directly or by implication. Gentlemen, and Mr. Mayor, a most respectable convention of Whig delegates met in this place a few days since, and passed very important resolutions. There is no set of gentlemen in the Commonwealth, so far as I know them, who have more of my respect and regard. They are Whigs, but they are no better Whigs than I am. They have served the country in the Whig ranks; so have I, quite as long as most of them, though perhaps with less ability and success. Their resolutions on political subjects, as representing the Whigs of the State, are entitled to respect, so far as they were authorized to express opinion on those subjects, and no further. They were sent hither, as I supposed, to agree upon candidates for the offices of Governor and Lieutenant-Governor for the support of

the Whigs of Massachusetts; and if they had any authority to speak in the name of the Whigs of Massachusetts to any other purport or intent, I have not been informed of it. I feel very little disturbed by any of those proceedings, of whatever nature; but some of them appear to me to have been inconsiderate and hasty, and their point and bearing can hardly be mistaken. I notice among others, a declaration made, in behalf of all the Whigs of this Commonwealth, of "a full and final separation from the President of the United States." If those gentlemen saw fit to express their own sentiments to that extent, there was no objection. Whigs speak their sentiments everywhere; but whether they may assume a privilege to speak for others on a point on which those others have not given them authority, is another question. I am a Whig, I always have been a Whig, and I always will be one; and if there are any who would turn me out of the pale of that communion, let them see who will get out first. I am a Massachusetts Whig, a Faneuil Hall Whig, having breathed this air for five-and-twenty years, and meaning to breathe it, as long as my life is spared. I am ready to submit to all decisions of Whig conventions on subjects on which they are authorized to make decisions; I know that great party good and great public good can only be so obtained. But it is quite another question whether a set of gentlemen, however respectable they may be as individuals, shall have the power to bind me on matters which I have not agreed to submit to their decision at all.

"A full and final separation" is declared between the Whig party of Massachusetts and the President. That is the text: it requires a commentary. What does it mean? The President of the United States has three years of his term of office yet unexpired. Does this declaration mean, then, that during those three years all the measures of his administration are to be opposed by the great body of the Whig party of Massachusetts, whether they are right or wrong? There are great public interests which require his attention. If the President of the United States should attempt, by negotiation, or by earnest and serious application to Congress, to make some change in the present arrangements, such as should be of service to those interests of navigation which are concerned in the colonial trade, are the Whigs of Massachusetts to give him neither aid nor succor?

If the President of the United States shall direct the proper department to review the whole commercial policy of the United States, in respect of reciprocity in the indirect trade, to which so much of our tonnage is now sacrificed, if the amendment of this policy shall be undertaken by him, is there such a separation between him and the Whigs of Massachusetts as shall lead them and their representatives to oppose it? Do you know (there are gentlemen now here who do know) that a large proportion, I rather think more than one half, of the carrying trade between the empire of Brazil and the United States is enjoyed by tonnage from the North of Europe, in consequence of this ill-considered principle with regard to reciprocity. You might just as well admit them into the coasting trade. By this arrangement, we take the bread out of our children's mouths and give it to strangers. I appeal to you, Sir, (turning to Captain Benjamin Rich, who sat by him,) is not this true? (Mr. Rich at once replied, True!) Is every measure of this sort, for the relief of such abuses, to be rejected? Are we to suffer ourselves to remain inactive under every grievance of this kind until these three years shall expire, and through as many more until Providence shall bless us with more power pass doing good than we have now?

as shall

of

Again, there are now in this State persons employed under government, allowed to be pretty good Whigs, still holding their offices; collectors, district attorneys, postmasters, marshals. What is to become of them in this separation? Which side are they to fall? Are they to resign? or is this resolution to be held up to government as an invitation or a provocation to turn them out? Our distinguished fellow-citizen, who, with so much credit to himself and to his country, represents our government in England,*—is he expected to come home, on this separation, and yield his place to his predecessor,† or to somebody else? And in regard to the individual who addresses you, what do his brother Whigs mean to do with him? Where do they mean to place me? Generally, when a divorce takes place, the parties divide their children. I am anxious to know where, in the case of this divorce, I shall fall. This declaration announces a full and final separation between the

Mr. Edward Everett.

Mr. Andrew Stevenson.

Whigs of Massachusetts and the President. If I choose to remain in the President's councils, do these gentlemen mean to say that I cease to be a Massachusetts Whig? I am quite ready to put that question to the people of Massachusetts.

I would not treat this matter too lightly, nor yet too seriously. I know very well that, when public bodies get together, resolutions can never be considered with any degree of deliberation. They are passed as they are presented. Who the honorable gentlemen were who drew this resolution I do not know. I suspect that they had not much meaning in it, and that they have not very clearly defined what little meaning they had. They were angry; they were resentful; they had drawn up a string of charges against the President,-a bill of indictment, as it were, and, to close the whole, they introduced this dec laration about "a full and final separation." I could not read this, of course, without perceiving that it had an intentional or unintentional bearing on my position; and therefore it was proper for me to allude to it here.

Gentlemen, there are some topics on which it has been my fortune to differ from my old friends. They may be right on these topics; very probably they are; but I am sure I am right in maintaining my opinions, such as they are, when I have formed them honestly and on deliberation. There seems to me to be a disposition to postpone all attempts to do good to the country to some future and uncertain day. Yet there is a Whig majority in each house of Congress, and I am of opinion that now is the time to accomplish what yet remains to be accomplished. Some gentlemen are for suffering the present Congress to expire; another Congress to be chosen, and to expire also; a third Congress to be chosen, and then, if there shall be a Whig majority in both branches, and a Whig President, they propose to take up highly important and pressing subjects. These are persons, Gentlemen, of more sanguine temperament than my. self. "Confidence," says Lord Chatham, "is a plant of slow growth in an old bosom." He referred to confidence in men, but the remark is as true of confidence in predictions of future occurrences. Many Whigs see before us a prospect of more power, and a better chance to serve the country, than we now possess. Far along in the horizon, they discern mild skies and halcyon seas, while fogs and darkness and mists blind other sons

of humanity from beholding all this bright vision. It was not so that we accomplished our last great victory, by simply brooding over a glorious Whig future. We succeeded in 1840, but not without an effort; and I know that nothing but union, cordial, sympathetic, fraternal union, can prevent the party that achieved that success from renewed prostration. It is not, I would say it in the presence of the world, it is not by premature and partial, by proscriptive and denunciatory proceedings, that this great Whig family can ever be kept together, or that Whig counsels can maintain their ascendency. This is perfectly plain and obvious. It was a party, from the first, made up of different opinions and principles, of gentlemen of every political complexion, uniting to make a change in the administration. They were men of strong State rights principles, men of strong federal principles, men of extreme tariff, and men of extreme antitariff notions. What could be expected of such a party, unless animated by a spirit of conciliation and harmony, of union and sympathy? Its true policy was, from the first, and must be, unless it meditates its own destruction, to heal, and not to widen, the breaches that existed in its ranks. It consented to become united in order to save the country from a continuation of a ruinous course of measures. And the lesson taught by the whole history of the revolution of 1840 is the momentous value of conciliation, friendship, sympathy, and union.

Gentlemen, if I understand the matter, there were four or five great objects in that revolution. And, in the first place, one great object was that of attempting to secure permanent peace between this country and England. For although, as I have said, we were not actually at war, we were subjected to perpetual agitations, which disturb the interests of the country almost as much as war. They break in upon men's pursuits, and render them incapable of calculating or judging of their chances of success in any proposed line or course of business. A settled peace was one of the objects of that revolution. I am glad if you think this is accomplished.

The next object of that revolution was an increase of revenue. It was notorious that, for the several last years, the expenditures for the administration of government had exceeded the receipts; in other words, government had been running in debt, and in the mean time the operation of the compromise act was