It was a noble scene. Regard for the poor man filled the mouths of the orators. Though his cottons, his sugar and his salt had been cheerfully made to pay, this duty would be "inhuman," a "tax on poverty," a tax "against the fireside and against woman," a tax "against the wages of weary labor" to support the "extravagance" of the "Tiberius" in the White House. But almost in the same breath came the hint, "If the administration needs money, let it re-enact the [protective] tariff of 1842." "The first condition [of Whig support] is," explained the Boston _Atlas_, "repeal the _British Bill_. Repeal the bantling of the House of Lords. Repeal the offspring of British paternity and precedent." "Should they be in want of money," proclaimed Webster, "I would say to them--restore what you have destroyed." A fairly definite understanding to this effect seems to have existed among the Whigs; malcontents on the other side gave them help; and the proposed duty was rejected in the House by a vote of 115 to 48. Partly for the same reason troops were not promptly voted. If the government does not need money, it does not need men, said the opposition. Thus the "patriotic sublimity" of the Whigs again commanded admiration, and some of the Democrats now had a share in it. [34.29] Another illustration of sublimity was the "Wilmot Proviso," that "firebell in the night," as Alexander H. Stephens called it, which no doubt some Congressmen accepted at its face value, and a multitude of honest citizens regarded as a New Commandment revealed on a new Sinai. The introduction of this measure, which prohibited slavery in territory acquired from Mexico, was both unnecessary and unwise. It blocked needed war legislation, added to the prevailing discord, and weakened the government in the face of the enemy.[34.30]