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 anti-tariff 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 still further and faster diminishing the revenue itself.  A sound revenue was one of those objects; and that it has been accomplished, our thanks and praise are due to the Congress that has just adjourned.