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XIX.

THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA CONTEST.

THE presidential election of 1852 gave the death blow to the Whig party. That organization had outlived its usefulness. It attempted to delude itself and the country with the idea that the one question of the day, that of slavery in the Territories, was settled, and could thenceforth be disregarded. Organized as the Whig party was, it was impossible for it to antagonize the Democratic party, which, whatever comforting assurances it might put forth in platforms, was constantly acting in a way to make the introduction of slavery into the Territories easy, and to render its exclusion impossible. For it was held that any American citizen might settle in any Territory with all his property of any kind, including slaves; that there was no power in a territorial government to prohibit slavery; and that only when the people came together to form a State constitution could they decide whether the institution should or should not exist. There was no party organization which went the length of disputing this position of the Democratic party, without going so much further that moderate opponents of the extension of slavery were deterred from acting with it.

The Whig party became extinct because, from the very nature of its organization, it could not oppose the Democratic pretension. It failed in the South because it made the contest on an issue in which the people were not interested; in the North because it had not the courage to avow opinions which a large majority of the party

held. But the Whig pretence, that the slavery question was settled by the compromise measures of 1850, was kept up for some years longer, until it became no longer possible to practise self-deception.

This delusion, however, very soon after the election of 1852, took a new phase. Native Americanism had been a favorite doctrine in certain parts of the North for many years, and of late it had been a growing sentiment. It was confined to no party, and the political method of those who believed in the principle that "Americans must rule America," and who were animated by hostility to the Roman Catholic Church, was to choose between candidates already nominated. Occasionally, however, in the cities of New York and Philadelphia, they nominated candidates of their own, and succeeded in electing them to local offices. The membership was carefully guarded; for the societies were secret, and the initiated were bound by oaths. The order which existed before 1850 was superseded, soon after the election of 1852, by a new one, the Order of United Americans, which became popularly known as the Know-Nothing Order, from the ignorance, even of the existence of such an association, which was professed by all its members. A very large proportion of the Whigs, hoping to transfer the political issue from slavery to Native Americanism, joined the order, and for some years it had extraordinary success in State elections; but, as Horace Greeley predicted at the time when it was at the height of its power, it was destined "to run its career rapidly, and vanish as suddenly as it appeared. It may last through the next presidential canvass; but hardly longer than that. . . . It would seem as devoid of the elements of persistence as an anti-cholera or an antipotato-rot party would be." It was chiefly confined to the East at first, and later it extended to the South, even as

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far as Texas, where it became strong enough to carry one election; but it never had much success, or an organization, in the West.

It was impossible to keep the slavery question out of sight. Mr. Pierce congratulated the country, at the beginning of his administration, that the agitation had ceased, and both parties were pledged to treat a revival of the controversy as an unpatriotic act; but it was revived at once by the proposition to organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The struggle between the proslavery and the anti-slavery factions over Kansas, both within and without the Territory, was one of unexampled bitterness; but during a large part of the administration of Mr. Pierce the opponents of the administration were fighting without any organization, or with only an imperfect one. The Republican party, composed largely of Whigs, but with a liberal contingent from the Democratic party, was formed in 1854. It first appeared in the elections of that year, and in 1855 carried the elections in Vermont and Ohio, barely failed in New York and Wisconsin, and gave promise of a great future in other States where it had been late in forming.

At the close of 1855 the situation was extremely complicated. In the Eastern States there were four parties, — the Democrats, the Whigs, the Know-Nothings, and the Republicans. The Democrats and Whigs were inclined to coalesce in order to withstand the common enemy, the Republicans, whose party was acquiring gigantic strength. The days of the Know-Nothing, or American, party were numbered, and most of the members had fallen away to the Republican party. In the West, except in Ohio, where a remnant of the Whig party survived, the parties were only two, the Democratic and the Republican.

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In the South the American party was at the time of its greatest success, having absorbed most of the Whig strength. Although the Whig party had not formally acknowledged that it had ceased to exist, it was really only a memory, and the members merely accepted and voted for the candidates of the Know Nothings.

The first convention preliminary to the convention of 1856 was that of the Americans. It was held on Washington's birthday, Feb. 22, 1856. "National Council" of the order had

But already the

been in session

three days, beginning on the 19th of the month, and had adopted the platform of the party. This platform was as follows:

1. An humble acknowledgment of the Supreme Being, for His protecting care vouchsafed to our fathers in their successful revolutionary struggle, and hitherto manifested to us, their descendants, in the preservation of their liberties, the independence and the union of these States.

2. The perpetuation of the Federal Union and Constitution, as the palladium of our civil and religious liberties and the only sure bulwark of American independence.

3. Americans must rule America; and to this end native-born citizens should be selected for all State, Federal, and municipal offices of government employment, in preference to all others Nevertheless,

4. Persons born of American parents residing temporarily abroad should be entitled to all the rights of native-born citizens.

5. No person should be selected for political station (whether of native or foreign birth) who recognizes any allegiance or obligation of any description to any foreign prince, potentate, or power, or who refuses to recognize the Federal and State Constitutions (each within its sphere) as paramount to all other laws as rules of political action.

6. The unqualified recognition and maintenance of the reserved rights of the several States, and the cultivation of harmony and fraternal good will between the citizens of the several States, and, to this end, non-interference by Congress with questions appertaining solely to the individual States, and non-intervention by each State with the affairs of any other State.

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