An immense audience gathered to hear him, many of them strongly disapproving his course, but after he had spoken a few moments, he had them completely under control.

He reviewed the negotiation; he discussed fully the differences in the party; he deplored, and he did not hesitate strongly to condemn these quarrels, because by them the fruits of victory were lost, and Whig policy abandoned.

With boldness and dignity he denied the right of the convention to declare a separation from the President, and the implied attempt to coerce himself and others.

"I am, gentlemen, a little hard to coax," he said, "but as to being driven, that is out of the question.

If I choose to remain in the President's councils, do these gentlemen mean to say that I cease to be a Massachusetts Whig?
I am quite ready to put that question to the people of Massachusetts." He was well aware that he was losing party strength by his action; he knew that behind all these resolutions was the intention to raise his great rival to the presidency; but he did not shrink from avowing his independence and his intention of doing what he believed to be right, and what posterity admits to have been so.