I cast my first vote
in November, 1847, shortly after I became of age. It was
for the Whig Governor. The Whig Party was already divided
into two sections, one known as "Cotton Whigs," and the other
as "Conscience Whigs." These names had been suggested in
a debate in the State Senate in which Mr. Thomas G. Carey,
an eminent Boston merchant, had deprecated some proposed anti-
slavery resolutions by saying that they were likely to make
an unfavorable impression in the South, and to be an injury
to business interests; to which Mr. E. R. Hoar of Middlesex
answered, that "he thought it quite as desirable that the
Legislature should represent the conscience as the cotton
of the Commonwealth."

Both parties struggled for the possession of the Whig organization,
and both parties hoped for the powerful support of Mr. Webster.
The leader of the manufacturing interest was Mr. Abbott Lawrence,
a successful, wealthy manufacturer of great business capacity,
large generosity, and princely fortune. He had for some years
chafed under Mr. Webster's imperious and arrogant bearing.
He was on terms of personal intimacy with Henry Clay, and
was understood to have inspired the resolutions of the Whig
State Convention, a few years before, which by implication
condemned Mr. Webster for remaining in President Tyler's
Cabinet when his Whig colleagues resigned. But the people
of Massachusetts stood by Webster. After the ratification
of the Ashburton Treaty, he came home to reassert his old
title to leadership and to receive an ovation in Faneuil Hall.
In his speech he declared with a significant glance at Mr.
Lawrence, then sitting upon the platform: "I am a Whig,
a Massachusetts Whig, a Boston Whig, a Faneuil Hall Whig.
If any man wishes to read me out of the pale of that communion,
let him begin, here, now, on the spot, and we will see who
goes out first."

The first time I remember seeing Daniel Webster was June 17,
1843, at Bunker Hill. The students of Harvard, where I was
a freshman, had a place in the procession. We marched from
Cambridge to Boston, three miles and a half, and stood in
our places for hours, and then marched over to Charlestown.
We were tired out when the oration began. There was a little
wind which carried the sound of Mr. Webster's voice away
from the place where we stood; so it was hard to hear him
during the first part of his speech. He spoke slowly and
with great deliberation. There was little in the g