ere held in Indiana and other
free States, organizations effected, and candidates nominated,
while the movement extended to the border slave states, in which
it afterward did excellent service. The canvass of the Democrats
was not remarkably enthusiastic. The division of the party and
the probable loss of the State of New York had a very depressing
influence. The Whig canvass was perhaps marked by still less
earnestness and spirit. It was hollow and false, and the best men
in the party felt it. The only enthusiasm of the campaign was in
the new party, and it was perfectly spontaneous and fervid. The
most remarkable feature of this contest was the bitterness of the
Whigs toward the Free Soilers, and especially those who had deserted
from the Whig ranks. They seemed to be maddened by the imputation
that they were not perfectly sound on the Free Soil issue. This
was particularly true of Mr. Webster, who had been branded by Mr.
Adams as a "Traitor to freedom," as far back as the year 1843, and
who afterward justified these strong words in his "Seventh of March
Speech." In the Whig State Convention of Massachusetts, held at
Springfield, in 1847, Mr. Webster, speaking of the Wilmot proviso,
had said: "Did I not commit myself to that in the year 1838, fully,
entirely? I do not consent that more recent discoverers shall take
out a patent for the discovery. Allow me to say, sir, it is not
their thunder." He then claimed Free Soil as a distinctive Whig
doctrine, and in a speech at Abingdon, he now said: "The gentlemen
who have joined this new party, from among the Whigs, pretend that
they are greater lovers of liberty and greater haters of slavery
than those they leave behind them. I do not admit it. I do not
admit any such thing. I think we are as good Free Soil men as they
are." The same ground was urged by Washington Hunt, James Brooks,
and other leading Whigs; and Mr. Greeley declared that "at no time
previously had Whig inculcations throughout the free States been
so decidedly and strongly hostile to the extension of slavery, and
so determined in requiring its inhibition by Congress, as during
the canvass of 1848." These statements appear very remarkable,
when it is remembered that the Whig nominee was a Louisiana planter,
and that he was nominated at the bidding of the slave-holding wing
of the party, and by a convention which not only contemptuously
voted down the Wilmot proviso, but treated its advocate