s were
all the Northern and a third of the Southern Whigs, with half of the
Northern Democrats and the four Free-Soilers in the House.

The bill finally passed on the 25th of May, 1854, and there instantly
began a hot battle for the congressional election. On the very next
morning,--so Henry Wilson relates,--a meeting of about twenty members of
the House was held; among their leaders were Israel Washburn, Jr., of
Maine, and Edward Dickinson and Thomas D. Eliot of Massachusetts; and it
was agreed that the best hope lay not in the Whig organization, but in a
new party, for which the name "Republican" was chosen; and of which
this occasion might now be considered the birth and christening. It
came to its earliest maturity in Michigan, where the Whigs and Free
Soilers united in the new party and carried the autumn election. But in
most Northern States there was political confusion, heightened by the
sudden appearance of the "American" party. This was the political
development of the "Know-nothing" secret society, which came into
existence the year before, on the basis of the exclusion of recent
immigrants from political power. Its special animus was hostility to the
Irish Catholics, and in various parts of the country it had for a year
or two a mushroom growth. In Massachusetts, where the Whigs clung
obstinately to their tradition and their social prestige, and the
Republican party was at first only a continuance of the Free Soil, the
Know-nothings won in 1854 a sweeping victory, carrying the State by
almost two to one and electing all the members of Congress. That shrewd
politician, Henry Wilson, contributed to the result; was elected to the
United States Senate; and led the anti-slavery element which controlled
the American party in Massachusetts and a year or two later divided its
national organization. In other States, the term "anti-Nebraska" was the
basis of a temporary union, such as in Ohio had a majority of 70,000. In
New York the influence of Greeley, Seward, and Weed prolonged the Whig
organization as an anti-Nebraska party. The roster of the new Congress
was a jumble of Democrats, Whigs, Republicans, Americans, and
anti-Nebraskans. But the general result was clear; Douglas's bill had
turned an overwhelming administration majority into a minority of the
popular vote; and the political revolution had carried the House in the
first engagement. The result crystallized a year later, when an
obstinate battle of many w