al a New Englander as Rufus Choate:
"The first duty of Whigs," wrote Choate to the Maine State central
committee, "is to unite with some organization of our countrymen
to defeat and dissolve the new geographical party calling itself
Republican.... The question for each and every one of us is...by what
vote can I do most to prevent the madness of the times from working its
maddest act the very ecstasy of its madness--the permanent formation and
the actual triumph of a party which knows one half of America only
to hate and dread it. If the Republican party," Choate continued,
"accomplishes its object and gives the government to the North, I turn
my eyes from the consequences. To the fifteen states of the South that
government will appear an alien government. It will appear worse. It
will appear a hostile government. It will represent to their eye a
vast region of states organized upon anti-slavery, flushed by triumph,
cheered onward by the voice of the pulpit, tribune, and press;
its mission, to inaugurate freedom and put down the oligarchy; its
constitution, the glittering and sounding generalities of natural
right which make up the Declaration of Independence.... Practically the
contest, in my judgment, is between Mr. Buchanan and Colonel Fremont. In
these circumstances, I vote for Mr. Buchanan."

The party of political evasion thus became the refuge of the old
original Whigs who were forced to take advantage of any port in a storm.
Buchanan was elected by an overwhelming majority. To the careless
eye, Douglas had been justified by results; his party had triumphed as
perhaps never before; and yet, no great political success was ever
based upon less stable foundations. To maintain this position, those
Northerners who reasoned as Choate did were a necessity; but to keep
them in the party of political evasion would depend upon the ability of
this party to play the game of politics without acknowledging sectional
bias. Whether this difficult task could be accomplished would depend
upon the South. Toombs, on his part, was anxious to continue making the
party of evasion play the great American game of politics, and in
his eagerness he perhaps overestimated his hold upon the South. This,
however, remains to be seen.

Already another faction had formed around William L. Yancey of
Alabama--a faction as intolerant of political evasion as the Republicans
themselves, and one that was eager to match the sectional Northern party
by