Magistrate of the Union, for whom we all entertain the most cordial respect and regard.

But we have come together, not forgetting, also, that we are Whigs, and not merely Boston Whigs, and Massachusetts Whigs, but National Whigs, members of a party co-extensive with our whole widespread Union. We are here, not forgetting that we have principles to maintain, which are far above all consideration of persons; that we have a cause and a country to support and uphold, independently of all questions about individual pretensions or preferences.

Nor can we forget, fellow-citizens, that the Whigs of Suffolk and of the whole State have been represented — fully, fairly, earnestly, enthusiastically represented in the Convention which has just been held; represented by able and eloquent voices of our own selection inside, and represented by great numbers of devoted and untiring spirits outside.

To that Convention we all voluntarily intrusted the selection of candidates. Wise, well-known, patriotic Whigs from every State in the Union composed it. And after a struggle of unprecedented duration and difficulty, they have announced their result.

Under these circumstances, we have come together to acquiesce in that result as a fixed fact; to recognize it as a finality; and to confirm and ratify it as binding upon all who acknowledge any thing of party obligation or allegiance.

We all know that if Daniel Webster had been nominated by the Convention, and if this meeting had been summoned to respond to that nomination, this hall, capacious and elastic as it is, would not have contained the multitudes who would have crowded and thronged its portals. We should all have been here, and the "Old Cradle" would have rocked again, as in its infancy, with your exulting shouts. And now shall it be said, for a moment, that the Whigs of Suffolk were only true to their colors when their own wishes were gratified, and when their own candidates were successful? Shall it be said of us, as it was once said of ancient Rome, that Octavius had a party, and Antony a party, but that the Republic had no party?

I observed by the papers that when that noble procession of Baltimore Whigs met and received your own not less noble pro

cession of delegates, at the gates of the Monumental City, they marched beneath a banner bearing this inscription: "We go for the nominee." That escort was accepted; and that banner was not repudiated. And upon the walls of the vast assembly-room in which the delegates were convened, there was inscribed, if I mistake not, our old watchword of victory in 1840: "The union of the Whigs for the sake of the Union." All this, I am persuaded, was no mere empty and delusive show. It meant something. And the meaning was nothing else, and could have been nothing else, than that which our State Convention and our Legislative Convention, and all our local conventions, had previously declared, that we intended to abide by the decision of the tribunal to which we had appealed, and to give our support to the candidates which it should select.

We are here, then, fellow-citizens, to take the first step for confirming and carrying out the acts to which we ourselves have been parties. We are here to vindicate and signalize the good faith of Faneuil-Hall Whigs, and to prove that no degree or depth of personal disappointment can prevent us from keeping our plighted troth with the Whigs of other States, or from doing unto others what we should have expected and demanded of others to do

unto us.

But I should do great injustice to the occasion and to my own feelings, were I to stop here. I should do still greater injustice to the names which have been presented to us, were I not to suggest, were I not to insist, that they are, abstractly and intrinsically, worthy of our support.

You do not require to be told who WINFIELD SCOTT is. His name, his character, his brilliant military and civil history, have been long familiar to the country. You all know him as one, who, for more than forty years, has been associated with the defence and glory of the republic. You have all heard of the youthful Virginian, the son of a farmer, left an orphan at the age of sixteen or seventeen years, who, having devoted himself to the study of the law, and entered on the practice of the bar, was incited by the prospect of an approaching war with England to join the little army of the United States, and who, in less than ten years thereafter, by his military genius, his heroic bravery, and

his patriotic ardor, had risen to the very highest grade in the service, and had achieved victories which would have done honor to the most experienced veterans of Europe. You have all heard of that heroic young man who had fought the battles of Queenstown and Fort George and Chippewa and Lundy's Lane,- who had been specially praised for his gallantry by James Madison in a presidential message, who had been brevetted a major-general, and had received the thanks of Congress with a gold medal,at the age of only twenty-eight years.

And you have all seen him in later years renewing the glories of his youth on other and more distant battle-fields. You have seen him leading on his small and ill-provided army to the performance of prodigies of valor, at Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo and Churubusco and Chapultepec, until he had planted the stars and stripes in triumph on the National Palace of Mexico. Well did he himself say, in his brief but characteristic proclamation, calling on his fellow-soldiers "to return thanks to God, both in public and private worship" for the signal victories which had been vouchsafed to them; well did he say, that "when the very limited numbers who have performed these brilliant deeds shall have become known, the world will be astonished, and our own countrymen will be filled with joy and admiration."

But, fellow-citizens, it is not only as a successful and illustrious soldier that Winfield Scott is commended to the support and gratitude of the American people. Nobody, it is true, pretends to compare him as an experienced statesman with others who might be named among the dead or among the living. He himself would scorn to set up any pretensions of the sort. One star differeth from another star in glory. But no one, on the other hand, can deny that he has rendered services to the country in time of peace, and to that noblest of all ends, the maintenance and preservation of peace, which are hardly inferior in importance to his gallant achievements in war. His admirable discharge of the delicate and difficult duties intrusted to him successively in South Carolina, on the Niagara frontier, on the Maine frontier, and in the removal of the Cherokees, which called forth the splendid eulogium of Channing, entitle him to be taken quite out of the class of mere military men, and to be ranked among the highest and most honored civil benefactors of the country.

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And now, when I add to all this what I can say of my own personal knowledge and observation, that he is a man of the purest life, of unsullied character, of unimpeachable integrity, evincing in his daily practice and example his respect and reverence for morality and religion, does any one here require further assurance, that, having been nominated as our candidate, he is entitled to our confidence and support?

Yes, fellow-citizens, there is one thing more necessary to complete his claim upon us as a political party, and that is, that he should be a sound, National, Union Whig. And that we all know he is, and has been from his earliest youth. And he has given one proof of it within a week past, which this assembly will be the last to impeach or gainsay,-I mean by planting himself fairly and unequivocally upon the platform of Whig principles, which was proposed and adopted under the lead and auspices of our own Ashmun and Choate.

Fellow-citizens, the Convention at Baltimore have nominated for the Vice-Presidency a member of the present Cabinet, a noble son of a noble State, WILLIAM A. GRAHAM, of North Carolina, whose principles and abilities have been displayed in his admirable discharge of the duties of Governor, of Senator, and of Secretary of the Navy, and than whom a purer, a better, or a more patriotic man does not breathe.

And now, how can we halt or hesitate as to our course with such candidates before us?

Why, my friends, shall we break our swords and abandon our colors and go over to the enemy, because we cannot have the precise leader of our choice to conduct us to victory? Shall we abandon the cause of American industry, of river and harbor improvements, and of a sound pacific foreign policy, out of any mere personal griefs? Shall we overturn the coach, because we cannot have our own favorite driver, or even because we may not exactly fancy some of our fellow-passengers? For myself, I can only say, that let who will be on the box, or who will get up behind, let who will be inside or who outside, as long as it keeps along in the straight road, and in the well-worn ruts of the Constitution, I am for holding fast to the good old Whig Union line. And what is more, I advise everybody who intends to go in that line

this trip, to secure their passage soon, as, notwithstanding some discouragements in this quarter, it looks very much to me as if, after we had once got fairly started, there were going to be very few seats to spare. At any rate, be there few or be there many, I am for going in, "Scott and lot," with the Old Whig Party of the United States, and am ready to bear my humble part of all its fortunes.

But I have detained you too long from the rich treat which awaits you. Distinguished gentlemen from our own State and from other States have favored us by their presence. In your name I bid them all welcome to Faneuil Hall; and it will be my privilege to announce and introduce them personally, as they rise to address you.