[Illustration: HISTORICAL MAP OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1854 SHOWING THE
VARIOUS ACCESSIONS OF TERRITORY ETC.
NOTE. The number under the name of a State indicates the date of its admission into the Union The Boundary between the United States and Mexico previous to 1845 & 1848 is indicated thus + + +]
For the present, party disintegration was slow; men were reluctant to abandon their old-time principles and associations. The united efforts of Douglas and the Administration held the body of the Northern Democrats to his fatal policy, though protests and defections became alarmingly frequent. On the other hand, the great mass of Northern Whigs promptly opposed the repeal, and formed the bulk of the opposition, nevertheless losing perhaps as many pro-slavery Whigs as they gained antislavery Democrats. The real and effective gain, therefore, was the more or less thorough alliance of the Whig party and the Free-soil party of the Northern States: wherever that was successful it gave immediate and available majorities to the opposition, which made their influence felt even in the very opening of the popular contest following the Congressional repeal.
It happened that this was a year for electing Congressmen. The Nebraska bill did not pass till the end of May, and the political excitement was at once transferred from Washington to every district of the whole country. It may be said with truth that the year 1854 formed one continuous and solid political campaign from January to November, rising in interest and earnestness from first to last, and engaging in the discussion more fully than had ever occurred in previous American history all the constituent elements of our population.
In the Southern States the great majority of people welcomed, supported, and defended the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, it being consonant with their pro-slavery feelings, and apparently favorable to their pro-slavery interests. The Democratic party in the South, controlling a majority of slave States, was of course a unit in its favor. The Whig party, however, having carried two slave States for Scott in 1852, and holding a strong minority in the remainder, was not so unanimous. Seven Southern Representatives and two Southern Senators had voted against the Nebraska bill, and many individual voters condemned it as an act of bad faith—as the abandonment of the accepted "finality," and as the provocation of a dangerous antislavery reaction. But public opinion in that part of the Union was fearfully tyrannical and intolerant; and opposition dared only to manifest itself to Democratic party organization—not to these Democratic party measures. The Whigs of the South were therefore driven precipitately to division. Those of extreme pro-slavery views, like Dixon, of Kentucky,—who, when he introduced his amendment, declared, "Upon the question of slavery I know no Whiggery and no Democracy,"—went boldly and at once over into the Democratic camp, while those who retained their traditional party name and flag were sundered from their ancient allies in the Northern States by the impossibility of taking up the latter's antislavery war-cry.
At this juncture the political situation was further complicated by the sudden rise of an additional factor in politics, the American party, popularly called the "Know-Nothings." Essentially, it was a revival of the extinct "Native-American" faction, based upon a jealousy of and discrimination against foreign-born voters, desiring an extension of their period of naturalization, and their exclusion from office; also based upon a certain hostility to the Roman Catholic religion. It had been reorganized as a secret order in the year 1853; and seizing upon the political disappointments following General Scott's overwhelming defeat for the presidency in 1852, and profiting by the disintegration caused by the Nebraska bill, it rapidly gained recruits both North and South. Operating in entire secrecy, the country was startled by the sudden appearance in one locality after another, on election day, of a potent and unsuspected political power, which in many instances pushed both the old organizations not only to disastrous but even to ridiculous defeat. Both North and South its forces were recruited mainly from the Whig party, though malcontents from all quarters rushed to group themselves upon its narrow platform, and to participate in the exciting but delusive triumphs of its temporary and local ascendency.
When, in the opening of the anti-Nebraska contest, the Free-soil leaders undertook the formation of a new party to supersede the old, they had, because of their generally democratic antecedents, with great unanimity proposed that it be called the "Republican" party, thus reviving the distinctive appellation by which the followers of Jefferson were known in the early days of the republic. Considering the fact that Jefferson had originated the policy of slavery restriction in his draft of the ordinance of 1784, the name became singularly appropriate, and wherever the Free-soilers succeeded in forming a coalition it was adopted without question. But the refusal of the Whigs in many States to surrender their name and organization, and more especially the abrupt appearance of the Know-Nothings on the field of parties, retarded the general coalition between the Whigs and the Free-soilers which so many influences favored. As it turned out, a great variety of party names were retained or adopted in the Congressional and State campaigns of 1854, the designation of "anti- Nebraska" being perhaps the most common, and certainly for the moment the most serviceable, since denunciation of the Nebraska bill was the one all-pervading bond of sympathy and agreement among men who differed very widely on almost all other political topics. This affiliation, however, was confined exclusively to the free States. In the slave States, the opposition to the Administration dared not raise the anti-Nebraska banner, nor could it have found followers; and it was not only inclined but forced to make its battle either under the old name of Whigs, or, as became more popular, under the new appellation of "Americans," which grew into a more dignified synonym for Know-Nothings.
Thus confronted, the Nebraska and anti-Nebraska factions, or, more philosophically speaking, the pro-slavery and antislavery sentiment of the several American States, battled for political supremacy with a zeal and determination only manifested on occasions of deep and vital concern to the welfare of the republic. However languidly certain elements of American society may perform what they deem the drudgery of politics, they do not shrink from it when they hear warning of real danger. The alarm of the nation on the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was serious and startling. All ranks and occupations therefore joined with a new energy in the contest it provoked. Particularly was the religious sentiment of the North profoundly moved by the moral question involved. Perhaps for the first time in our modern politics, the pulpit vied with the press, and the Church with the campaign club, in the work of debate and propagandism.
The very inception of the struggle had provoked bitter words. Before the third Nebraska bill had yet been introduced into the Senate, the then little band of "Free-Soilers" in Congress—Chase, Sumner, Giddings, and three others—had issued a newspaper address calling the repeal "a gross violation of a sacred pledge"; "a criminal betrayal of precious rights"; "an atrocious plot," "designed to cover up from public reprehension meditated bad faith," etc. Douglas, seizing only too gladly the pretext to use denunciation instead of argument, replied in his opening speech, in turn stigmatizing them as "abolition confederates" "assembled in secret conclave" "on the holy Sabbath while other Senators were engaged in divine worship"—"plotting," "in the name of the holy religion"; "perverting," and "calumniating the committee"; "appealing with a smiling face to his courtesy to get time to circulate their document before its infamy could be exposed," etc.
[Sidenote: "Globe" March 14, 1854, p. 617.]