442 
Indiana U niv ersi ty 
gressmen in Indiana showed that the Whig ship was lost. 
The Free Soil sympathizers within the Democratic party had 
been overridden. The same was true in Illinois where to the 
ear of “Egypt” Free Soilism and banks were equally anathema. 
A brief revival of the Free Soil party was staged in Michigan 
in 1852 under the name of the Free Democracy, but the 
Democrats elected the governor by a majority over both Whig 
and Free Democracy candidates. 
As the presidential returns slowly came in they revealed 
the fate of the Whig party in Ohio. The Democrats even 
captured 4 counties of the Western Reserve, and in Illinois 
the Whigs retained only the district in central Illinois and 
the river counties in the North. In no state was the Whig 
debacle more pronounced than in Wisconsin. The party 
carried but 1 county and the Free Soil territory shrank to 
2 counties carried by pluralities. In Michigan but 4 counties 
were left to them. 
The campaign of 1852 drew the curtain on the Whig party. 
It carried no state in the Northwest, and the vote against 
it was 420,556 to 354,561. The defection of Fillmore’s friends 
and the “isms” of the times were blamed for the result,®^ 
but these explanations did not hide the fact of the party’s 
decease. The complaint of not being able to get out the Whig 
vote was pathetic; the Whig votes were not there to get 
out. When a few weeks later the extent of the calamity was 
apparent, and Whigs were being advised to abandon the 
sinking ship, the advice was resented.®® The Democratic 
party mourned little over the disappearance of its old 
opponent. 
Died on the eve of 2nd of November inst. Sir Whig Party, aged 18 years. 
The deceased died insolvent and left no heirs in the line of collateral 
consanguinity, except a profligate cousin, of easy virtues by the name 
“Every ism was against them — Free Soilism, Abolitionism, Native Americanism, 
Secessionism, anti-Rentism, Free Public Landism, Interventionism, Filibusterism — in a 
word, all the little factions in the country.” Illinois Journal (Springfield, 111.), Novem- 
ber 19, 1852. 
8^ “We trust that the time is not far off, when the American people will choose 
party attitudes more distinctly representing the opposite views which vitally concern 
them. But surely it is not in awe of the motley political aggregation which now con- 
fronts us, or with a view to ‘going over’ to any of the isms or ologies of which that 
aggregation is composed, that the old Whig guard can have need, or find it expedient, 
either to disband or surrender.” Ohio State Jo'urnal, November 29, 1852. The editor 
spoke more prophetically when he said : “Party names therefore, are of but little real 
importance. When the great battle shall come between conservatism and radicalism, 
as it chooses to style itself, the Whig party, with or without reference to old pai'ty 
names on one side or the other will be in that battle on the side of conservatism.” 
