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rather than the degradation of the slave power in the country. Freedom was worsted in that controversy, as well as in all others which occurred during his administration.

Neither did the opposition party in the senate under the lead of Mr. Clay contribute much during his administration to the cause of freedom. All opposition senators, it is true, did not vote for the compromise bill; but enough of them did, with Mr. Clay, its reputed author, at their head, to give their political influence that direction. The representatives of both parties in congress were alike faithless to free institutions in that transaction, and deserve equal censure from their countrymen. The course of Mr. Adams in the house of representatives concerning the right of petition afforded some relief, however, to the gloomy picture.

CHAPTER VII.

UNION OF THE ANTI-MASONIC WITH THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AFTER 1832, AND THEIR ORGANIZATION AS WHIGS, WITH REPUBLICAN PRINCIPLES-EX-PRESIDENT ADAMS AND OTHER REPUBLICANS REPRESENTATIVE MEN-WHIGS WITHHOLD CENSURE OF PRESIDENT JACKSON FOR CAPITULATING TO SOUTH CAROLINA OUT OF RESPECT TO HENRY CLAY-FIDELITY TO THE CONSTITUTION SEWARD THE REPRESENTATIVE MAN IN NEW YORK-HIS NOMINATION IN 1834 FOR GOVERNOR-NOMINATION OF HARRISON AND GRANGER IN 1836; ALSO JUDGE WHITE, OF TENNESSEE-THE ALBANY RESOLUTIONS—

RESULT OF ELECTION ENCOURAGING-RAPID GROWTH OF THE PARTY AFTERWARD THE HARRISBURGH CONVENTION IN 1839-NOMINATION OF HARRISON AND TYLER-THE CANVASS WISELY MANAGED.

THE Republican party of the United States kept its faith and name until after the defeat of Henry Clay and John Sargeant in the presidential election of 1832, when it relinquished the title for one more agreeable to Anti-Masons who then disbanded as a party and entered its ranks. It then assumed to be the Whig party in the country, with Republican principles. It claimed a high antiquity, reaching back to protests against crown prerogatives under the reign of James the Second of England, and extending through an unbroken series of political struggles down to the American revolution. It claimed inheritance of the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence as they were subsequently expounded by the author of that manifesto, and administered by himself, and all his Republican successors. It set John Quincy Adams, the last Republican president, Henry Clay, his secretary of state, William Wirt, his attorney general, Richard Rush, his secretary of the treasury, John McLean, his postmaster general,

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Samuel L. Southard, his secretary of war, and Daniel Webster, who, about that time, distinguished himself by a masterly argument against nullification, in the front rank of its forces, as distinguishing representatives of its princi-. ples. And it put itself at issue with the Jackson polity, respecting the proceeds of the public lands, the power and duty of the general government to improve the interior of the country, the re-chartering of the bank of the United States, the removal from that institution of the government deposits, the payment of government dues in specie, and the exposure of domestic industry to ruinous competitions from English workshops. For the sake of Mr. Clay, who had been persuaded into a compromise with nullification, it withheld censure against the president for signing that bill.

In the state of New York, the new party signalized its advent by the nomination, in 1834, of William H. Seward, the intimate friend and admirer, and since, the eulogist and biographer, of the last of the Republican presidents, for the office of governor. This gave a complexion to its subsequent character in the northern states, down to the period when it fell, with General Scott, under the enormous weight of compromises with the slave power, with which its national platform of 1852 was burthened. It was inaugurated in the faith of the apostles of civil liberty, and undertook to resist both the allurements and encroachments of southern despotism. It pledged itself as well to all constitutional measures for ameliorating and improving the social condition of the people, as to others relating merely to their pecuniary interests and political rights; and it committed itself particularly to the policy of universal education, universal suffrage, and unrestricted freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press. It avowed fidelity to the constitution of the United States, including

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all its reservations and compromises; but it dissented from all attempts to construe the former into licenses for state rebellion, or the latter into warrants for federal usurpation. It maintained the general right of every man to personal freedom, unless forfeited by crime, but disclaimed the right of congress, or of the legislatures or the people of non-slaveholding states, to interfere with slavery where it existed under the protection of local law.

The first Whig convention for national objects was held on the 3d of February, 1836, in the city of Albany; and was composed of delegates from New York state only. Over this body John W. Taylor, of Saratoga, presided, with Luther Bradish, of Franklin, Willis Hall, of New York city, and Millard Fillmore, of Erie, as vice presidents. It nominated General William H. Harrison, of Ohio, for the presidency, and Francis Granger, of New York, for the vice presidency; and adopted the following resolutions:

“Resolved, That in support of our cause, we invite all citizens opposed to Martin Van Buren and the Baltimore nominees.

"Resolved, That Martin Van Buren, by intriguing with the executive to obtain his influence to elect him to the presidency, has set an example dangerous to our freedom and corrupting to our free institutions.

"Resolved, That the support we render to William H. Harrison, is by no means given to him solely on account of his brilliant and successful services as leader of our armies during the last war, but that in him we view also the man of high intellect, the stern patriot, uncontaminated by the machinery of hackneyed politicians—a man of the school of Washington.

"Resolved, That in Francis Granger we recognize one of our most distinguished fellow-citizens, whose talents we

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admire, whose patriotism we trust, and whose principles we sanction."

These nominations were seconded in most of the Whig state conventions held that year in the northern, middle, and north-western states, except in Massachusetts, whose legislature nominated Daniel Webster, and in Ohio, whose legislature nominated John McLean, and were concurred in by the Anti-Masonic convention held at Harrisburgh. But the legislatures of Alabama and Tennessee nominated Hugh L. White, senator in congress from the latter state, and he was supported by the representatives in congress from Tennessee, except Colonel Polk and Cave Johnson. The party was able to cast the electoral votes of Vermont, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, in all seventy-three, for General Harrison, of Georgia and Tennessee, in all twenty-six, for Judge White, and of Massachusetts, fourteen, for Daniel Webster. Its electoral votes for vice president were divided between Francis Granger, of New York, and John Tyler, of Virginia. This, as it consolidated the party and gave it a distinctive political character, was deemed a fair beginning.

From this time forward, to 1840, the growth of the Whig party was rapid and healthy. It received large accessions from conservative democrats, who broke with Van Buren on account of his measures and meddling with the currency. Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, William C. Rives, Hugh S. Legare, and John C. Clark, were of the number. It attracted into its ranks the young men of the country who relied for support on the rewards of their own industry, which were greatly diminished by the monetary pressure which the currency measures of Van Buren occasioned. And it held an incentive no less in