With the event mentioned, his public life ended. Mr. Sumner
was elected to the Senate. The next year the Whig Party nominated Mr.
Winthrop and I was brought into direct competition with him. Again he
failed.
When, in 1855, the Republican Party was organized, a committee waited
upon Mr. Winthrop, and invited him to join the movement. His public
record was satisfactory upon the slavery question, that is, it was
better than that of many others who became Republicans. He declined to
take a position, and gave as a reason that he was unwilling to act with
the men who were leading the movement. He named Sumner, and Wilson.
If his decision had been otherwise, it is quite doubtful if his nerve
would have been equal to the contests through which the Republican
Party was destined to pass. Mr. Winthrop had in him nothing of the
revolutionary spirit. In England, in the times of Cromwell he would
have followed the fortunes of the Stuarts, and it is difficult to
imagine him as the associate of Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Thomas
Jefferson, in Revolutionary days.
Mr. Rantoul appeared in the Senate after a few days, and his term
lasted about twenty days, giving him an opportunity to make one speech.
He was afterwards elected to the House of Representatives from the
Essex District, and died while a member at the age of forty-seven
years.
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