proposed nor concurred in
the nomination of any Northern man. Vermont would hear of nothing but
the nomination of a Southern and slave-holding candidate. Connecticut
was of the same mind, and so was Rhode Island. The North made no demand,
nor presented any request for a Northern candidate, nor attempted any
union among themselves for the purpose of promoting the nomination of
such a candidate. They were content to take their choice among the
candidates of the South. It is preposterous, therefore, to pretend that
a candidate from the Slave States has been forced upon the North by
Southern dictation.

In the next place, it is true that there were persons from New England
who were extremely zealous and active in procuring the nomination of
General Taylor, but they were men who would cut off their right hands
before they would do any thing to promote slavery in the United States.
I do not admire their policy; indeed I have very little respect for it,
understand that; but I acquit them of bad motives. I know the leading
men in that convention. I think I understand the motives that governed
them. Their 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 the