which that section had obtained ever increasing power over the country by legislation. Taking up the words of the South, he employed them for the North and declared that the North now asked at the hands of the South only to be let alone. He did not ask that the Fugitive Slave Law should be rescinded, he made no plea for the North as against the onerous condition resting upon it through that measure. He merely asked that the legislatures of the Northern States should not be hampered in their handling of that measure within the limits of their undoubted rights by the imposition of a sweeping law whose design was subversive of their liberties. Said he: "Let us alone. Do not involve us in the support of slavery. Hug the viper to your bosoms, if you perversely will, within your own States, until it stings you to a generous remorse, but do not compel us to hug it too; for this, I assure you, we will not do."

Sumner then moved an amendment repealing the Fugitive Slave Law, which received but nine votes. The main bill was then passed by a vote of thirty to nine, although no vote was taken upon it in the House.

CHAPTER XII

REALIGNMENT OF POLITICAL PARTIES

THE Consummation of the Kansas-Nebraska scheme did more to shake the free States in their sentiments of union than any other occurrence in the history of the nation. The North had accepted the Compromise of 1850 as fixing the conditions of a perpetual union of the States of the two sections, and indeed the South also had accepted that settlement as final. Now was disclosed the fact, startling even to a large part of the South, that when a motive for aggression was offered to the slaveholding States they were ready to push their claims to the farthest limit without regard to the danger to the Union. Northern Whigs, who had favored conciliation were now convinced that the limits of concession had been reached. They were grieved that the Southern Whigs had, by their support, made possible the of the obnoxious measure. passage (( Repudiate such fraternity, throw old party considerations to the winds, and appeal to the honest people of the free States, without distinction of parties." This was the sentiment that found favor throughout the North and led the Northern Whigs to make common cause with anti-slavery Democrats, Freesoilers and all others who would fight with them in the common cause of freedom. Upon the common political ground of resistance to slavery these all met. Thus the repeal of the Missouri Compromise cemented Northern opposition and fixed firmly the lines of sectional distinction.

Added to this great cause of irritation in the North were other matters productive of dissatisfaction. These were the marauding enterprises sent out from the South to Cuba and elsewhere, and the Burns and other cases under the Fugitive Slave Law. The state of feeling in the country is illustrated by what occurred in Indiana, May 24 and 25, 1854. In this State a party revolt was threatened, and the Democratic convention secured the passage of a resolution pledging support to the Nebraska bill. The next day the Free-soil Democrats of the State met at Indianapolis and denounced the bill in the strongest terms. Shortly after the passage of the Nebraska bill, members of Congress who had opposed it issued an address setting forth the reasons for their opposition. This declaration contended that the free States had lost "all guarantee for freedom in the territories contained in former compromises; while all the States, both slave and free, had lost the guarantees of harmony and union which those compromises afforded." They also affirmed that this measure looked to the wider extension of slavery in the future, and that the annexation of Cuba and portions of Mexico at any cost of money or blood was included in the slaveholders' programme. They also declared that the slave States wished to cause war against England, France, and Spain in coöperation with Russia, and wanted the United States to effect an alliance with Brazil to extend slavery into the valley of the Amazon. This address was severely criticised by Southern members, especially James C. Jones, of Tennessee, who declared that it was a mass of fiction and wild imaginings.

The project for a fusion of all persons in the North opposed to slavery extension was popular, as that section was prepared for coöperative action on the part of those who gave adherence to similar principles. Men who were diametrically opposed in their views with regard to practical emancipation found themselves in agreement upon the subject of slavery extension. By the 4th of July, Union conventions had been called in Vermont, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan,

Wisconsin, New York, and Pennsylvania. It was at a Michigan anti-Nebraska convention held in Detroit two days after the national holiday that the new fusion party was denominated "Republican." In the second week of July, the Ohio and Wisconsin conventions adopted this name for the new party. On the 16th of August, a convention met at Saratoga, New York, comprising delegates representing all parties in the Empire State which had opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The convention, without nominating a State ticket, adjourned to meet in September. Among those who took part in this convention were Horace Greeley and John A. King. The Whigs met at Syracuse in September and adopted a platform of principles similar to that of the Saratoga convention, and nominated Myron H. Clark for governor. The antiNebraska convention, upon reassembling, endorsed the Whig ticket, and this example was followed the next day by the State Temperance convention at Auburn. Such was the course of political happening in 1854, with the addition of one other political movement, mention of which may be deferred while the activities already sketched are filled out in greater detail.

One by one, the papers of the North had discarded the fellowship of the Southern sections of their parties. Among these was the New York Evening Post, which had contributed largely to the election of Franklin Pierce. This journal did much for the development of that popular sentiment which was responsible for the creation of the Republican party. The New York Tribune took the lead in this movement, although Greeley had little heart for the contest which was involved, fearing defections such as had so often defeated movements projected in the North in opposition to slavery extension. The representatives of the people having favored the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise, he had little faith that the people themselves would reverse their decision. Nevertheless, the Tribune was made the medium for the expression of the views of such men as Richard Hildreth,