But it would have been less wrong to leave him without succors, even if needful to his safety, than to vote falsehood and unjust war. In seeing that the republic received no detriment, you should not have regarded the army only; _your highest care should have been that its good name, its moral and Christian character, received no detriment_. You might have said, in the spirit of virtuous Andrew Fletcher, that "you would lose your life to _serve_ your country, but would not do a base thing to _save_ it." You might have adopted the words of Sheridan, in the British Parliament, during our Revolution, that you "could not assent to a vote that seemed to imply a recognition or approbation of the war."[195] [195] Speech, Nov. 27, 1780: Hansard, Parl. Hist., XXI. 905. Another apology is, that the _majority_ of the Whig party joined with you,--or, as it has been expressed, that "Mr. Winthrop voted with all the rest of the weight of moral character in Congress, from the Free States, belonging to the Whig party, _not included in the Massachusetts delegation_"; and suggestions are made in disparagement of the _fourteen_ who remained unshaken in loyalty to Truth and Peace. In the question of Right or Wrong, it is of little importance that a few fallible men, constituting what is called a majority, are all of one mind. Supple or insane majorities are found in every age to sanction injustice. It was a majority which passed the Stamp Act and Tea Tax,--which smiled upon the persecution of Galileo,--which stood about the stake of Servetus,--which administered the hemlock to Socrates,--which called for the crucifixion of our Lord. These majorities cannot make us hesitate to condemn such acts and their authors. Aloft on the throne of God, and not below in the footprints of a trampling multitude, are the sacred rules of Right, which no majorities can displace or overturn. And the question recurs, Was it _right_ to declare unjust and cowardly war, with superadded falsehood, in the cause of Slavery? Thus do I set forth the character of your act, and the apologies by which it is shielded. I hoped that you would see the wrong, and with true magnanimity repair it. I hoped that your friends would all join in assisting you to recover the attitude of uprightness which becomes a Representative from Boston. But I am disappointed.