"
So the Anti-Slavery Whigs eagerly supported him as their
candidate for the Whig nomination in 1848.
If Mr. Webster had been nominated for the Presidency in 1848,
the Free Soil Party would not have come into existence that
year. There would have been probably some increase in the
numbers of the Liberty Party; yet the Anti-Slavery Whigs of
Massachusetts would have trusted him. But the nomination
of General Taylor, a Southerner, one of the largest slaveholders
in the country, whose laurels had been gained in the odious
Mexican War, upon a platform silent upon the engrossing subject
of the extension of slavery, could not be borne. The temper
of the Whig National Convention was exhibited in a way to
irritate the lovers of freedom in Massachusetts. When some
allusion was made to her expressed opinions, it was received
with groans and cries of "Curse Massachusetts." But, on the
whole, the Massachusetts Whigs shared the exultant anticipation
of triumph, and of regaining the power from which they had
been excluded since the time of John Quincy Adams, except
for the month of Harrison's short official life.
Pages:
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270