Studies in American History 
13S 
question satisfactorily, they would scatter their votes to 
defeat the unfriendly candidates. Adams thought this was 
“mischievous” and “injurious to their own cause” and that 
the administration party which they abhorred had gained 
by their policy.®^ 
The extreme Abolitionists were even more uncompromising 
than the southern Whigs and their sympathizers in the North. 
Webster had entered the campaign for Harrison and was urg- 
ing the union of the northern and southern Whigs. The 
Liberator said: 
Resolved, That the son of New England who gives his influence in 
support of that “work of hell, foul and dark”, American slavery, dis- 
graces the land of his birth . . . and if not purified, to leave New Eng- 
land, — nay, to be put out of the circle of human sympathies and human 
regards.®'^ 
It declared later in the campaign that no one had done more 
to spread slavery than Harrison, and that if an antislavery 
man could support Harrison or Van Buren innocently and 
properly, he could abandon antislavery innocently and prop- 
eriy.65 Harrison refused to talk on abolition because every- 
thing he had said had been perverted or mutilated by the 
Abolitionists.®® 
It was during this period that a split came in the abolition 
group over the introduction of antislavery, as such, into poli- 
tics. The leader of the political group of Abolitionists was 
James Birney. The New York State Antislavery Society 
passed a resolution in 1836 expressing regret that citizens 
of free states should elect men to office who countenanced 
slavery.®^ Some time later, at a meeting in northern Ohio, 
Birney declared for the formation of a national political, 
antislavery party.®® This almost caused a split in the organ- 
ization. Finally, positive action was decided upon. The 
Rochester Freeman and The Emancipator favored the move. 
On December 7, 1839, an abolition convention was held in 
western New York, which nominated James G. Birney of New 
York for president and Francis J. Lemoyne of Pennsylvania 
for vice-president.®® Birney declined because of the local char- 
63 Ibid., X, 43, 44. 
6^ The Liberator, July 24, 1840. 
66 Ibid., September 18, 1840. 
66 The Globe, August 6, 1840. 
6’^ William Birney, Sketch of the Life of James G. Birney (Chicago, 1884), 19. 
68 Ibid., 22. 
Niles* Register, LVII, 240. 
10—34488 
