e
the following extract from my speech at Worcester:

"But we are thinking to-night of the matter of electing a
Governor. Character is more important than opinion; good
name to the State, as to the citizen, is better than riches.
I suppose it is true of each one of you as of myself that
among his chief comforts and pleasures in life is his pride
in being a Massachusetts citizen. The honor and good fame
of our beloved State is far above any question of party. I
think I do you no more than justice when I declare that you
lament as much as I do the personal character of the contest
which is upon us. It has never been the habit of Republicans
to deal in personalities. The Republican press and the Republican
platform in Massachusetts has been singularly free from these
things. What Democratic candidate can be named other than
the present Governor to whom the Republicans have not delighted
to pay the respect due to honorable and respected opponents.
Have Gaston or Thompson or either Adams or Hancock or any
of their candidates for Congress, anything to complain of
in this respect? If we deal differently with General Butler,
it is because the difference is in him. We have selected
our own candidate on a very simple principle. In determining
on whom we would confer the title, His Excellency, we have
sought a man who represented in his own person our standard
of excellence. We sought a man whom the fathers and mothers
of the Commonwealth would be willing to hold up to their children
for imitation. We sought a man, tried and proved in important
public trusts, faithful, sincere, upright, downright, who
would continue and maintain the honored line of Massachusetts
Governors. We have found such a man in George D. Robinson.
I will sum up what I have to say of Mr. Robinson by saying
that he is in every respect the reverse of his antagonist.
We are told that we must not discuss the record of the candidate
of our antagonists before his election last year. That was
all condoned. I do not concede for myself that truth is necessarily
determined by majorities. I have a high respect for the people,
but they do not change men's characters by their votes. But,
be it so, let bygones be bygones. Let us concede that the
career of our present governor as citizen and soldier and
statesman furnishes a lofty example of every virtue under
heaven. Let us admit that it was love of liberty that advocated
the Fugitive Slave Law in the