2. Whether I am right or wrong in my opinion as to the duty
of acting with and adherence to party, it is the result not
of emotion or attachment or excitement, but of as cool, calculating,
sober and deliberate reflection as I am able to give to any
question of conduct or duty. Many of the things I have done
in this world which have been approved by other men, or have
tended to give me any place in the respect of my countrymen,
have been done in opposition, at the time, to the party to
which I belonged. But I have made that opposition without
leaving the party. In every single instance, unless the question
of the Philippine Islands shall prove an exception, and that
is not a settled question yet, the party has come round, in
the end, to my way of thinking. I have been able by adhering
to the Republican Party to accomplish, in my humble judgment,
ten-fold the good that has been accomplished by men who have
ten times more ability and capacity for such service, who
have left the party.
When Governor Boutwell, the President of the Anti-Imperialist
League, wrote me that he thought I could do more good for
that cause by staying in the Republican Party than by leaving
it, and when he declared in a public interview in Boston that
of course Mr.
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