CHAPTER XII

BLACK REPUBLICANISM

The passing of the Whig party after its defeat in the election of 1852, must be counted among the most momentous facts in our political history.  Whatever were its errors, whatever its shortcomings, it was at least a national organization, with a membership that embraced anti-slavery Northerners and slave-holding Southerners, Easterners and Westerners.  As events proved, there was no national organization to take its place.  One of the two political ties had snapped that had held together North and South.  The Democratic party alone could lay claim to a national organization and membership.

Party has been an important factor in maintaining national unity.  The dangers to the Union from rapid territorial 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.