They asked no other reward.

The Whigs were in favor of using wisely, but courageously, the forces of the Nation and State to accomplish public objects for which private powers or municipal powers were inadequate.

The Whigs desired to develop manufacture by national protection; to foster internal improvements and commerce by liberal grants for rivers and harbors; to endow railroads and canals for public ways by grants of public lands and from the treasury; to maintain a sound currency; and to establish a uniform system for the collection of debts, and for relieving debtors by a National bankruptcy law.
The Whig policy had made Massachusetts known the world over as the model Commonwealth.

It had lent the State's credit to railroads.

It had established asylums for the blind and insane and deaf and dumb, and had made liberal gifts to schools.
The Massachusetts courts were unsurpassed in the world.