confederacy."

Conceding Democratic control of national affairs, they prepared to take up local issues as the basis for their efforts. "With favorable climate, soil, and natural resources", read the address of the Whig Executive Committee calling a state convention, we yet present the humiliating spectacle of a State wholly without any great works of internal improvement, or development of those resources, from the aid and assistance of our State government. Our State, under twelve or fourteen years of Democratic rule, has been permitted to remain stationary, while all our sister States are engaged in a generous emulation as to who shall best work and agree in this great cause of improvement and real progress." They prepared to agitate for the redemption of the honor of the state by the payment of the repudiated bonds and to act as a party of retrenchment and reform. They hoped that twelve years of Democratic "misrule" had made the situation unbearable, the time ripe for a reaction.

So they brought all the party machinery into operation-local meetings, county conventions, the central executive committee, and a state convention. Before the state convention was held, however, a double Democratic split, growing out of the action of the state convention, which had forced the withdrawal of the independent-spirited Union men and then alienated many State Rights Democrats by passing over the superior claims of their candidate for congressman at large,'

Jackson Flag of the Union, Jan. 28, 1853.

• Id., March 18, 1853; see editorial of April 15, entitled "The Conservative and the Progressive."

Davis, Recollections of Mississippi and Mississippians, 330-334; Monticello Journal, May 14, 28; Houston Southern Argus, May 11, 25, 1853.

caused the Whigs to alter their plans. At once their leading journals espoused the Union cause and condemned the corruption of caucuses and conventions, which were so prone to subordinate the will of the people to the desire for the spoils. "The spirit of party has ruled Mississippi with a rod of iron, and has borne like the nightmare upon her energies and best interests. It is time to shake off the incubus. Let the people call to places of trust and responsibility pure patriots, without regard to old party distinctions, regarding only their honesty and capability and their Integrity to the Union and the Constitution." When the Whig convention met at the appointed time, in place of formal nominations it only adopted resolutions endorsing candidates already in the field as "the choice of the people ". Though all the men named were Whigs, the candidature of Governor Foote for the United States Senate and of the Union Democratic congressmen for reelection was later approved by this new Union movement. An interesting canvass followed. The Union men, barring out old party issues, insisted that the contest was between the Union party and the State Rights party, repeating the contest of 1851. The bond question was dropped as one that might preclude Democratic cooperation; the sentiments of Pierce's inaugural were stamped with approval. But all this was in vain. It was impossible to duplicate the victory of 1851. The Democratic state ticket was elected and every one of

8 American Citizen, in Jackson Flag of the Union, June 24; cf. Natchez Courier, Raymond Hinds County Gazette, in ibid.; id., June 17, 1853.

'The Democrats were quite ready to hold the Whigs to the advocacy of the payment of the bonds. Houston Southern Argus, Sept. 14,

the Democratic candidates for Congress, although all the Union men of the last delegation-two Democrats and one Whig, were up for reelection.

It is evident that the Whig party in the South had degenerated into a mere opposition party, ready to act under one name or another in the cause "against the Democrats". "The cardinal principles and policy of the Whig party will endure under every vicissitude of fortune", wrote Senator Bell of Tennessee after Scott's defeat, "and an organization in some form, and under some denomination, Whig, Conservative, or what not-some method of securing a concentrated effort by which those principles can be brought to bear, and have a salutary influence upon, if not the control of public affairs, must and will be maintained. . . . Party divisions will and must ever exist." " The southern Whig party had been composed from the start of factions which, although apparently incongruous, were all essentially conservative. The state rights men sought protection for the institutions of the South in general and for negro slavery as the peculiar foundation upon which they were based; the nationalists were in favor of safeguarding existing rights, privileges, and conditions, North as well as South. On the whole, the coalition of the two elements was a natural political

10

10 Letter of Dec. 1, Nashville Republican Banner, Dec. 22, 1852. The Savannah Republican, Nov. 6, 1852, commented on the news of Scott's defeat. "Whig principles and Whig minorities still exist. The former are, in our opinion, the only foundation stones of wise political structures, and minorities are the materials from which majori ties are constructed. You may call the party Whig or Conservative, or what you will, Democratic rule will always give occasion for the formation of some party to arrest its destructive and disorganizing tendencies."

11

move. The effect of it was that all but the irreconcilable state rights men were gradually won over to the larger view of conservatism and to latitudinarian views.

It would seem difficult to understand how slave-holders would be benefited by northern national conservatism, especially after the northern Whigs had established a reputation for anti-slavery propensities. Except in the matter of the external relations of the country, where both opposed annexation, fillibustering, and intervention, the latter becoming a moot point at the time of Kossuth's visit to the United States in 1851, the Whigs North and South had to face different problems as conservatives. In the North, the attack came from within, from local opponents who could be combatted from the ranks of the party. For the South, however, the attack came largely from without, from opponents in the northern states, men enrolled in the ranks of either party. Southern Whig conservatism protected the established institutions, ideas, and traditions of the North, while northern Whig conservatism would seem, at first glance, to offer no guarantee to the peculiar institution of the South. The southerners, however, did not feel that such was the actual situation. They felt that the northern conservatives needed their support against "the centrifugal tendencies of loco focoism" too much for that. This was pointed out by Cabell in the exciting days that preceded the compromise acts of 1850. Commenting on the devotion of northerners to the Union, he declared, " To you it [the

"In 1852 a stranger combination than this was proposed when there was a possibility that the extreme state rights men and the Whigs in Alabama and Georgia might unite in common cause against the Democrats. Cf. Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb Correspondence; Montgomery Alabama Journal, March, 1852; Mobile Advertiser, Feb. 20, 1852.

Union] may be necessary to save you from the effects of Socialism, Agrarianism, Fanny Wrightism, Radicalism, Dorrism, and Abolitionism. The conservatism of slavery may be necessary to save you from the thousand destructive isms infecting the social organization of your section"." Many northern Whigs-the "silver grey" or "cotton" Whigs in particular-saw the reasonableness of the expectation that they would defend the institution of slavery from the hostile attacks of the abolition agitator.

The southern disunion movement attempted in the later forties was staunchly opposed by the southern Whigs, who with singular unanimity sustained the compromise measures and defeated their enemies on the secession issue.. Hot-headed nullifiers of the 1832 period and others who had not thought it treason at that time to calculate the value of the Union became the leaders of the cohorts that had recently come to its rescue. This was clear proof of their conservatism and of their nationalism. But in their zeal for the Union they had at times laid aside or belittled the party line and cooperated with a wing of their traditional opponents. The Union movement was demoralizing, Whig measures had become obsolete, and fellowship with their northern allies had become less desirable. United on the Georgia platform of 1850, their position on the sectional issue agreed substantially with that of the Democrats except as to the constitutional basis and the

12 Cabell on March 5, 1850, Cong. Globe, 31 Cong., 1 sess., Appendix, 242. In the course of his speech he stated, "On all questions, except this of slavery, they [northern Whigs] do constitute the conservative body of the North; and on this they are more reliable than the northern Democratic party". Ibid., 239. Two years later he had changed his mind and concluded a similar statement with the words, "and upon that they have run as wild as wild can be ".