THE SLAVERY QUESTION.

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account, it declared it to be impossible to desist from demanding a resolution of finality, since a party which refused to guarantee constitutional and legal protection to the chief interest of one-half of the country thereby divested itself of its national character. The one course of reasoning was as logical as the other, and hence it was impossible to mediate between the two views. The fault lay not in the conclusions but in the premises, and it was the same on both sides. Both held to the fiction, that slavery belonged exclusively to the domain of the separate states, while, in truth the whole controversy turned on whether its nationalization, in respect to the rights claimed by the south, should be made the lasting condition precedent to the continued existence of the Union. What undoubtedly followed from these opposed courses of reasoning, was precisely that which both fractions, in unison with the Democrats, rejected: the slavery question was not only not settled, but it could no longer be prevented from bearing henceforth the character of a political party question; i. e. it furnished the basis for the building up of the national political parties, or rather it compelled the transformation of political parties into sectional parties.

The opposition in the Whig caucus deserves credit for having put this fact in a clearer light. The lying formula, to agree to disagree, which was still advocated by the radical wing of the northern Whigs, was rejected by them as untenable, and the right consequence was drawn from that conviction. 1 When the Buffalo Express of the 12th

1 The N. Y. Tribune was written to from Washington as follows on the 7th of April: "No, Mr. ‘Kit' Williams, and Mr. Humphrey Marshall, and Mr. E. Carrington Cabell, and Mr. All-the-rest, who dream (fitfully and fearingly, perhaps) that this present Whig administration plan of consolidating the Whig party, and bringing it to an agreement upon the subject of slavery, will work usefully, you are

of April claimed that the finality policy was followed only in the interest of Fillmore, it took a very narrow and very wrong view of the situation. People had not sought for a means of insuring the re-election of Fillmore, and then hit upon the finality idea; but because Fillmore had now, so to speak, fully identified himself as president, with the compromise, the finality party desired to place him at the helm. But on the other hand, the assertion of the Tribune was correct, that the finality policy was an attempt to consolidate the Whigs, in respect to the slavery question, a thing which could not be accomplished, and hence, on the contrary, could only end in the disruption of the party. This claim was now proved by deeds by the caucus opposition. Eleven southern Whigs published an address in justification of their course in the caucus. The significant manifesto declared that neither now nor in the future, would they support a candidate who had not expressed himself in an unambiguous manner in favor of the finality of the compromise. That they would not

mistaken. There are two parts to the Whig party. There is a northern and southern division-a slavery and an anti-slavery wing. There always was and always must be while it exists as a national party. On the subject of slavery there can be no agreement. The two sections of the party must do now, and hereafter, as they always have done-agree to disagree-or the party must go to pieces."

1 It would seem that the parties who got into power in the Whig party by accident, are determined that the party shall continue them in power, or be defeated; and in their efforts to produce that result, are seeking to place the Whig party upon a platform that will insure its ignominious defeat whoever may be nominated. This scheme is urged for the sake of Mr. Fillmore-and his only."

2" To assert the converse of our proposition-'to agree to disagree' -on questions connected with the institution of slavery, as it is recog nized by the constitution, on the Fugitive Slave Law and the finality of the compromise-is to open willingly the sources of the most noxious agitation, and to reveal the means of assailing anew the harmony, and, mayhap, the existence of the Union. . . We repu

abate anything of this demand was undoubted, and to hope that they would remain alone and would win no adherents among the people, was an illusion altogether too great, because what Gentry had said in the state convention of the Whigs at Nashville on the 20th of March, 1851, was correct: the two national parties had lost their right to existence and therefore their capacity for existence. 1 Stephens now expressed the same view in the house of representatives, and gave his reasons for it, in an irrefutable manner: political parties are viable only when they have their foundation in controlling political questions. And a few weeks later, Gentry drew the last

diate and refuse, for our part, now and hereafter, to lend our support to any candidate whose principles are not plainly defined, or to join in any crusade against popular rights, the honesty of politics, or the palpable interest of the country, for the purpose of achieving a temporary political triumph." The address is printed in full in the N. Y. Tribune of April 29, 1852.

1 66 The Whig and Democratic parties, as at present formed and organized, taking them in the whole extent of the Union, are malformations-unnatural monsters. Both parties embrace sound and unsound elements. The disruption of both is inevitable at no very remote day. Present organizations may possibly continue until the next presidential election; they certainly will not long survive after that event." The address is printed in full in the N. Y. Tribune of April 29, 1852.

2 "Nothing can be truer than that all parties deserving the name of party should be organized upon the principle of agreement and concurrence upon the paramount questions of the day. To speak, therefore, of this house as divided between Whigs and Democrats is, for all practical purposes, just as absurd and unmeaning as to speak of the British house of commons, at this day, as divided between Cavaliers and Roundheads, upon the anti-corn laws, or the income tax. They are unmeaning terms when you come to designate and define the position of members upon any of the leading public questions. I repeat, sir, that in all representative governments, parties to be efficient, living, and energetic, must sooner or later be organized upon those questions of public policy which control administration." Congr. Globe, 1st Sess., 32d Congr., App., p. 460.

consequence from these premises when he declared, that he would do all he could to destroy the Whig party, when his efforts to effect its reformation had proved fruitless.1

The initiative in the finality policy on the basis of new, solemn declarations of the factors of government had been taken by the Whig president, in his two annual messages, and by the Whig members of congress in their first caucus, and this was the result.

1 "I am seeking to reform, purify, and nationalize that party; and when I have made an honest effort for that object, and failed, then the next highest duty which I shall deem incumbent upon me, will be to destroy it as thoroughly as I can. And I will perform it to the utmost extent of my power. I do not blink questions." Ib., p. 709.

ELECTION OF 1852.

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CHAPTER IV.

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1852.

Almost half a year had passed, since the opening of congress; from the very first days of it, the "finality of the compromise," had been the shibboleth in all political contests; the continuance of the Union had been repeatedly declared to depend on the decision of that question, and one of the two national parties had actually fallen to pieces under its weight. From these facts, it is plain that this strange and, so far as language is concerned, not very happy expression, which was absolutely incomprehensible to a stranger, without a long commentary, must have had an eminently important meaning. The person who went in search of that meaning, in the direct way indicated by the expression itself, was led from one enigma to another still harder to solve. If the matter of the compromise laws were examined, the gigantic terrors which the treatment of the affair in congress led one to expect, disappeared like so much mist. The thing which

so far as could be seen at the time-could again assume the form of a question, was relatively so insignificant, that the importance which all political groups without distinction attached to it, could not possibly be explained by the fact that it might assume such a form once more. California was and continued a state of the Union, with the same rights and duties as the other states; the limits of Texas were firmly established, and the money with which its untenable claims had been settled could not be de