142 POLITICS IN MASSACHUSETTS. [CHAP. XI. 



of Texas, which prohibits the Legislature from ever setting the 

 bondman free, and deprecated the diversion made from the ranks 

 of the Whigs by the Abolitionists, who, by setting up a candi 

 date of their own for the Presidentship, had enabled their oppo 

 nents to carry a man pledged to the annexation of Texas. At 

 the same time he gave this party the credit of being as conscien 

 tious as they were impracticable. He then alluded to another 

 &quot; separate organization,&quot; as it is here called, namely, that of the 

 &quot; Native Americans,&quot; which had in like manner defeated the 

 object they had in view, by dividing the Whigs, the majority of 

 whom agreed in thinking the present naturalization laws very 

 defective, and that a stop should be put to fraudulent voting. 

 The introduction of a long Latin quotation from Cicero showed 

 that the speaker reckoned on having a considerable number at 

 least of well-educated men in his large audience. The frequent 

 mention of the name of Governor George N. Briggs, the initial 

 letter only of the second appellative being pronounced, grated 

 strangely on my English ear ; for though we do not trouble our 

 selves to learn all the Christian names of our best actors, as Mr. 

 T. P. Cooke and Miss M. Tree, we are never so laconic and 

 unceremonious in dealing with eminent public men. I had asked 

 several persons what K. signified in the name of the President, 

 James K. Polk, before T ascertained that it meant Knox ; but, 

 in the United States, it might have no other signification than 

 the letter K. ; for, when first in Boston, I requested a friend to 

 tell me -what B. stood for in his name, and he replied, &quot; For 

 nothing ; my surname was so common a one, that letters ad 

 dressed to me were often mis-sent, so I got the Post-Office to 

 allow me to adopt the letter B.&quot; 



I came away from this and other public meetings convinced 

 that the style of speaking of Mr. Webster, Mr. Everett, Mr. Win- 

 throp, arid some others, would take greatly in England, both in 

 and out of parliament. It was also satisfactory to reflect, that 

 in Massachusetts, where the whole population is more educated 

 than elsewhere, arid more Anglo-American, having less of recent 

 foreign admixture, whether European or African, the dominant 

 party is against the extension of slavery to new regions like Texas, 



