[34]Another apology, which is often supplied by your defenders, is, that the majority of the Whig party joined with you, or, as it has been expressed, that ‘Mr. Winthrop voted with all the rest of the weight of moral character in Congress, from the Free States, belonging to the Whig party, not included in the Massachusetts delegation;’ and suggestions have been made in disparagement of the fourteen, who remained unshaken in their loyalty to Truth and Peace. In the question of Right or Wrong, it can be of little importance, that a few fallible men, constituting what is called a majority, were all of one mind. In every age supple or insane majorities have been found to sanction injustice. It was a majority which passed the Stamp Act, and Tea Tax; which smiled upon the persecution of Galileo; which stood about the stake of Servetus; which administered the hemlock to Socrates; which called for the crucifixion of our Lord. But these majorities cannot make us withhold condemnation from the partakers in these acts.
Let me add that, in other respects, your course has been in disagreeable harmony with your vote on the Mexican War Bill. I cannot forget—for I sat by your side at the time—that on the 4th of July, 1845, in Faneuil Hall, you extended the hand of fellowship to Texas; although she had not yet been received among the States of the Union. I cannot forget the toast, which you uttered on the same occasion, by which you have connected your name with an epigram of dishonest patriotism. I cannot forget your apathy at a later day, when many of your constituents entered upon holy and constitutional efforts to oppose the admission of Texas, with a slaveholding constitution—conduct strangely inconsistent with your recent avowal of ‘uncompromising hostility to all measures for introducing new slave States and new slave Territories into the Union.’ Nor can I forget the ardor with which you devoted yourself to the less important question of the Tariff—indicating the relative position of the two questions in your mind. As I review your course, the vote on the Mexican War Bill seems to be the dark comsummation.
And now let me ask you, when you resume your seat in Congress, to bear your testimony at once, without hesitation or delay, against the further prosecution of this war. Forget for a while the Sub-Treasury, the Veto, even the Tariff; and remember this wicked war. With the eloquence which you command so easily, and which is your pride, call for the instant cessation of hostilities. Let your cry be that of Falkland in the civil wars, ‘Peace! Peace!’ Think not of what you have called, in your speeches, ‘An honorable peace.’ There can be no peace with
