fice."

The canvass of the Whigs was totally without heart or enthusiasm.
The Southern wing of the party had dictated the platform, but did
not like Gen. Scott. Stephens and Toombs, of Georgia, and Jones
and Gentry, of Tennessee, refused to support him. The Northern
Whigs were greatly embarrassed, and while they felt constrained to
support the candidate, tried to relieve their consciences by
"spitting upon the platform" on which he stood. Mr. Webster did
not disguise his hostility to the ticket, and predicted the speedy
dissolution of the party. The Democrats were united in this contest.
Notwithstanding their atrocious platform they succeeded in persuading
the leading Barnburners of 1848 to return to the party and muster
again in the army of slavery. Dix, the Van Burens, David Dudley
Field, Tilden, and a host of others, including even Robert Rantoul
and Preston King, were now fighting for Pierce, while Bryant's
"Evening Post" and Greeley's "Tribune" cravenly submitted to the
shackles of slavery. In the light of such facts as these it was
easy to forecast the result of the contest.

The real enthusiasm of this campaign was in the ranks of the Free
Soilers. They had, of course, no dream of success, or even of
carrying a single electoral vote; but they were profoundly in
earnest, and united as one man against the combination of the old
parties in behalf of slavery. I took the stump, and early in the
campaign accepted an invitation to join Cassius M. Clay in the
canvass of the counties of Lewis, Bracken, and Mason, in Kentucky.
On my way to our first appointment I stopped at Maysville, where
I found myself in the midst of a considerable excitement about some
thirty or forty slaves who had just crossed the Ohio on their way
to Canada. I met Mr. Clay at the residence of the Rev. John G.
Fee, some eight miles distant in Lewis county, where we talked over
the plan of our campaign. Mr. Fee was the founder of an anti-
slavery colony, a free school, and a free church, in that region,
and was a scholar, philanthropist, and reformer. His whole heart
was in the anti-slavery cause, and his courage had never failed
him in facing the ruffianism and brutality which slavery employed
in its service; but I would not have felt very safe in this enterprise
without the presence of Mr. Clay, who was known in Kentucky, and
everywhere else, as "a fighting Christian," who would defend the
freedom of speech at any hazard. Our first m