reasoning was this:  “General Taylor is a Whig:  not eminent in civil life, not known in civil life, but still a man of sound Whig principles.  Circumstances have given him a reputation and eclat in the country.  If he shall be the Whig candidate, he will be chosen; and with him there will come into the two houses of Congress an augmentation of Whig strength.  The Whig majority in the House of Representatives will be increased.  The Democratic majority in the Senate will be diminished.”  That was the view, and such was the motive, however wise or however unwise, that governed a very large majority of those who composed the convention at Philadelphia.  In my opinion, this was a wholly unwise policy; it was short-sighted and temporizing on questions of great principles.  But I acquit those who adopted it of any such motives as have been ascribed to them, and especially of what has been ascribed to them in a part of this Buffalo Platform.

Such, Gentlemen, are the circumstances connected with the nomination of General Taylor.  I only repeat, that those who had the greatest agency originally in bringing him before the people were Whig conventions and Whig meetings in the several States, Free States, and that a great majority of that convention which nominated him in Philadelphia was from the Free States, and might have rejected him if they had chosen, and selected anybody else on whom they could have united.

This is the case, Gentlemen, as far as I can discern it, and exercising upon it as impartial a judgment as I can form,—­this is the case presented to the Whigs, so far as respects the personal fitness and personal character of General Taylor, and the circumstances which have caused his nomination.  If we were weighing the propriety of nominating such a person to the Presidency, it would be one thing; if we are considering the expediency, or I may say the necessity (which to some minds may seem to be the case), of well-meaning and patriotic Whigs supporting him after he is nominated, that is quite another thing.

This leads us to the consideration of what the Whigs of Massachusetts are to do, or such of them as do not see fit to support General Taylor.  Of course they must vote for General Cass, or they must vote for Mr. Van Buren, or they must omit to vote at all.  I agree that there are cases in which, if we do not know in what direction to move, we ought to stand still till we do.  I admit that there are cases in which, if one does not know what to do, he had better not do he knows not what.  But on a question so important to ourselves and the country, on a question of a popular election under constitutional forms, in which it is impossible that every man’s private judgment can prevail, or every man’s private choice succeed, it becomes a question of conscientious duty and patriotism, what it is best to do upon the whole.