Studies in American History 
443 
of Free Soil Abolition. Whatever chattel the deceased may have 
possessed at its demise, either of principles, “picture books” or banners 
will be entailed upon Miss Free Soil Abolition.'"'* 
The Whig party was dead, altho a few fitful efforts were 
made to resuscitate it. Many of its members were indifferent 
to its end, and likewise not many Democrats of the North- 
west got any real joy out of the election of Franklin Pierce. 
They pretended to gloat over the prostrate form of their 
ancient foe and seemed little to realize that the Jacksonian 
Democracy was also making its last stand, and that in battles 
to come the Jacksonians and Whigs would be fighting side by 
side in a common cause. With the disappearance of the Whig 
party went the only force which held the Democrats together, 
and in annihilating it they but plotted their own undoing. 
The Indiana State Journal spoke truer than it knew when on 
election day Defrees wrote : 
The result of the election today is of vast consequence to the future of 
this country. The triumph of the Democracy would see the destruction 
r I tlie little protection now existing .... Then would the slavery ques- 
tion, which so recently threatened to destroy our country, and is now 
so happily settled, be opened again, not to be closed otherwise than by 
a dissolution of the Union.'*'* 
The year following the election of 1852 was one of general 
political calm. The slavery question was apparently settled as 
far as Democrats were concerned; ‘‘finality’’ prevailed. Only 
minor struggles over the patronage and the increasingly im- 
portant questions of temperance, women’s rights, and Know- 
Nothingism kept the Democratic party from monopolizing the 
stage as had the Jeffersonian Republicans after the over- 
throw of the Federalists. But behind the scenes were being 
prepared new lines which, when revealed, were to rally the 
scattered forces of Whigs and Free Soilers and break the 
party of Jefferson and Jackson. Temperance, women’s rights, 
and Know-Nothingism all had to yield to the more pressing 
slavery question. The Ohio Democracy carried the state in 
1853 by a large majority over Whigs and Free Soilers and 
interpreted the result as an approval of the Pierce administra- 
tion. In their contentment they little dreamed that Medill 
was the last governor they were to elect for twenty years. 
Indiana Whigs and Democrats fought over the temperance 
Argus and Democrat (Madison, Wis.), November 16, 1852. 
Indiana State Journal, November 2, 1852. 
