torial expansion have not always
been realized. The attachment of new Western communities to the Union
has too often been taken as a matter of course. Even when the danger
of separation was small, the isolation and provincialism of the new
West was a real menace to national welfare. Social institutions did
their part in integrating East and West; but the politically
integrating force was supplied by party. Through their membership in
national party organizations, the most remote Western pioneers were
energized to think and act on national issues.[507] In much the same
way, the great party organizations retarded the growth of
sectionalism at the South. The very fact that party ties held long
after social institutions had been broken asunder, proves their
superior cohesion and nationalizing power. The inertia of parties
during the prolonged slavery controversy was an element of strength.
Because these formal organizations did not lend themselves readily to
radical policies, they provided a frame-work, within which adjustments
of differences were effected without danger to the Union. Had
Abolitionists of the radical type taken possession of the organization
of either party, can it be doubted that the Union would have been
imperiled much earlier than it was, and very probably when it could
not have withstood the shock?

No one who views history calmly will maintain, that it would have been
well for either the radical or the conservative to have been dominant
permanently. If the radical were always able to give application to
his passing, restless humors, society would lose its coherence. If the
conservative always had his way, civilization would stagnate. It was a
fortunate circumstance that neither the Whig nor the Democratic party
was composed wholly either of radicals or conservatives. Party action
was thus a resultant. If it was neither so radical as the most radical
could desire, nor so conservative as the ultra-conservative wished, at
least it safeguarded the Union and secured the political achievements
of the past. Moreover, the two great party organizations had done much
to assimilate the foreign elements injected into our population. No
doubt the politician who cultivated "the Irish vote" or "the German
vote," was obeying no higher law than his own interests; but his
activities did much to promote that fusion of heterogeneous elements
which has been one of the most extraordinary phenomena of American
society. With