Webster each gave a son, never to be returned. From the State of my own
residence, besides other worthy but less known Whig names, we sent
Marshall, Morrison, Baker, and Hardin; they all fought, and one fell, and
in the fall of that one we lost our best Whig man. Nor were the Whigs few
in number, or laggard in the day of danger. In that fearful, bloody,
breathless struggle at Buena Vista, where each man's hard task was to
beat back five foes or die himself, of the five high officers who
perished, four were Whigs.

In speaking of this, I mean no odious comparison between the lion-hearted
Whigs and the Democrats who fought there. On other occasions, and among
the lower officers and privates on that occasion, I doubt not the
proportion was different. I wish to do justice to all. I think of all
those brave men as Americans, in whose proud fame, as an American, I too
have a share. Many of them, Whigs and Democrats are my constituents and
personal friends; and I thank them,--more than thank them,--one and all,
for the high imperishable honor they have conferred on our common State.

But the distinction between the cause of the President in beginning the
war, and the cause of the country after it was begun, is a distinction
which you cannot perceive. To you the President and the country seem to
be all one. You are interested to see no distinction between them; and I
venture to suggest that probably your interest blinds you a little. We
see the distinction, as we think, clearly enough; and our friends who
have fought in the war have no difficulty in seeing it also. What those
who have fallen would say, were they alive and here, of course we can
never know; but with those who have returned there is no difficulty.
Colonel Haskell and Major Gaines, members here, both fought in the war,
and both of them underwent extraordinary perils and hardships; still
they, like all other Whigs here, vote, on the record, that the war was