elections held a few weeks previously. Even in Georgia, with the two tickets, fully twenty thousand Whig voters, or one-half of the party, failed to go to the polls." In Alabama at least many Whigs supported the Troup and Quitman State Rights ticket as an alternative to voting for either Scott or Pierce." Everywhere there was a falling off in the Whig vote.

The southern Whig journals in explaining the result failed to take cognizance of the fact that similar conditions prevailed in the Democratic camp and prevented that party from polling its full strength. Hence they held that the election, with the fairly small Democratic majorities returned, was really a sign of Whig strength and showed what the party could do when united upon a candidate. They did not feel with the northern antislavery Whigs and with Stephens's independents that it was really the death-blow to the Whig party; so they diagnosed the situation with the view of healing the wound, whereas those who felt that the end of the party was at hand prepared to hold a post-mortem over the remains.

The cause of the defeat and of Pierce's election was assigned to the absence of the Whigs from the polls; the result was not considered as evidence of the weakness of Whig principles. It was the essential conservatism behind these principles which in the judgement of many constituted the chief value of the party.

7 At Brunswick, Glynn County, Georgia, no polls were opened, it being the deliberate opinion of the people that none of the candidates were worthy of support. National Intelligencer, Nov. 10. The Nashville Republican Banner, Dec. 14, claimed a falling off of 86,000 in the Whig vote of the South.

80" With the exception of a very few honest and sincere Southern rights men, the great body of those who voted for Troup and Quitman were Whigs." Montgomery Alabama Journal, Nov. 25.

Upon these, the Whigs could rally for another fight. But to heal the breach it was necessary to effect the return of the disaffected to the party allegiance. It was decided that they must not be condemned nor ostracized for the course they had pursued, since it involved no antagonism in principle, that there must be no criminations and recriminations, but that, by burying this recent disagreement among other bygones, harmony and cooperation could be restored. On the other hand, it was decided that those out of sympathy with the cause should be driven out of the Whig camp, as they could do less injury when on the outside than when on the inside. Comparatively little was said of either faction of the northern wing. There could be no doubt that Seward and his allies had been fatal to Scott's success and that of the Whigs, but it was hoped that they would now recognize that they were out of place in the Whig party and that the northern wing would be purged of all but the real conservatives."1

The forces for reorganization made an abortive effort immediately after the election. The Whig sages of Tennessee gathered around the festive board, not to celebrate a victory, but to take into serious consideration the future of the party." In Alabama and Mississippi the matter was taken up by the press and by party meetings," both of which recommended a thorough reorganization of the party in those states upon the old issues. The Whigs of Louisiana, who claimed that the new constitution, which the state had just

81 See Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel, in New York Tribune, Nov. 15, 1852.

82 Nashville Republican Banner, Dec. 3; Memphis Eagle and Enquirer, Dec. 9.

83 Jackson Flag of the Union, Nov. 19; Memphis Eagle and Enquirer, Dec. 12.

adopted, was a Whig production," hoped to be able to capture the first election under it as the proper reward for their work. But there was little response anywhere to the demand for reorganization; in Louisiana the Whigs failed to do as well as in the presidential election less than two months before, thus allowing the Democrats to take complete control of the state government and to reapportion the congressional districts so as to ensure a Democratic delegation for the next Congress."

84 New Orleans Bulletin, Nov. 17, 20, Dec. 18, 27. They pointed out that it gave the state a chance for development in the line of banking and railroads. The Whigs as the slave-holders had advocated the ap portionment of representation on the basis of the total population, including slaves, and having secured it, boasted that the constitution would guarantee Whig control in Louisiana for at least another generation. Cf. Butler, Judah P. Benjamin, 110.

85 National Intelligencer, May 10, 1853.

CHAPTER IX.

THE KANSAS-Nebraska BILL.

The state and congressional elections of 1853, besides revealing the demoralization of whiggery in the South, gave conclusive proof that there was no longer a national Whig party in any sense of the term. In Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina a fairly active canvass was carried on under the old party lines, although the Democrats were entirely unopposed in many districts where opposition seemed hopeless. Yet the Whigs barely held their own in Kentucky, failed to secure a single member of Congress from Virginia, lost two more districts in North Carolina to the Democrats, who thus secured a majority of the delegation, and in Tennessee, where under the new apportionment they had counted on eight out of the ten districts, they had to be satisfied with an equal division with their opponents, who also elected Andrew Johnson, their candidate for governor, by over two thousand.' In Maryland and Louisiana uninteresting and unexciting contests were carried on: in both the Whigs were badly defeated; the Louisiana Democrats, aided by a rearrangement of the districts, secured every congressman but one, while their Maryland brethren reversed the situation there by electing four out of the six members.

The Tennessee Whigs later regained one congressman in the first district.

The situation in the states of the lower South again demands greater attention. In Alabama the Whigs planned a contest on old party lines but their nominee for governor declined to make the canvass. Although the candidates for the legislature and for Congress then laid especial emphasis upon the Union issue and attacked the Democrats for their fire-eating propensities, the party suffered a defeat which proved fatal to its continuance there. The situation in Georgia was quite similar. Howell Cobb and the Union Democratic leaders had renounced the Union movement as no longer necessary, but the Whigs, joined by many Union Democrats, calling themselves "Conservatives ", "Republicans", "Unionists", or "Union Conservatives ", under the leadership of Stephens and Toombs, nominated Charles J. Jenkins for governor. They thus came very near being successful in their opposition to the "secessionists", being defeated by a majority of only five hundred.*

The Mississippi Whigs made a desperate effort to recover and to reorganize. There never has been a period in the political history of Mississippi that more required a thorough organization of the friends of law, order, and good government than the present ", declared the Jackson Flag of the Union. "By the united action of the good old Whig party, the State may yet stand 'redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled', and assume her proper station among her sisters of the

2 They saved but a single congressman, Abercrombie, the insurgent, who was reelected from the Montgomery district.

Savannah Republican, June 24, July 6. There was some talk among certain Scott Whigs of a third convention to nominate a real Whig ticket. See Macon Citizen, in Washington Union, July 24, 27, 1853. Savannah Republican, Oct. 10, 1853. Stephens and Reese were elected to Congress out of a delegation of eight.