of resisting him by violence; and this manifestation, it declared, was a precedent and parallel of the demonstrations against Thompson; both were outcroppings of the same lawless spirit. The whole stress of this article was directed not against the mob that forbade Thompson to speak and hanged and burned him in effigy, nor against the respectable classes that had encouraged and tolerated this violence, but against those who had declared that they would disobey or resist the law for the return of fugitives. Mr. Thompson's charges against the Republican were met by denials and rebuke, and there followed a long and bitter controversy between him and the paper. For several weeks the disturbance was a leading topic in its columns; and upon this and similar occurrences the same tone was maintained, of condemnation equally severe theoretically of those who mobbed Abolitionist speakers and those who rescued fugitives from their captors; but with the sharpest stress of rebuke against the latter.

Meantime the politics of the state had taken a singular course. The Free-soilers remained throughout the country generally in a minority, whose small number is remarkable when we consider that their principles were equally anti-slavery and constitutional, and that their leaders included such men as C. F. Adams, Sumner, Wilson, Palfrey, John P. Hale, Giddings, Chase, and others of like quality. The party was very small, but in some states it held the balance of power between the two great parties, and by a temporary alliance with one of them. could win some important position. In Massachusetts, Webster's defection from the anti-slavery cause, in which the Whig party as a body followed him, offered a chance of success to the opponents of that party, if they could unite their forces. Hitherto the Democrats had been less friendly than the Whigs to Free-soil principles. In

several Congressional districts, at the election of 1850, the Free-soilers and a part of the Whigs united upon a candidate. Horace Mann, who had represented the old district of John Quincy Adams as an anti-slavery Whig, lost the party renomination by his opposition to Webster after the 7th of March; he was nominated by the Freesoilers led by C. F. Adams, and was elected. There were some other similar cases. But a different plan of coalition was proposed for the legislature. Each of the three parties had its own candidates before the people for governor and state officers, but it became clear that neither would have a majority, and in that case the choice would devolve on the legislature. That body was also to elect two United States senators, one for an unexpired term of a few weeks, the other for a full term of six years. It was proposed that in the legislature the Free-soilers should join forces with the Democrats, to give the state offices to the latter and the long-term senatorship to a Free-soiler. This arrangement was

opposed by some of the Free-soil leaders, including Adams, Palfrey, and Whittier, but most of their number, including Henry Wilson and F. W. Bird, favored the agreement, and an understanding was openly established with the Democrats.

Such a combination, in which the two parties are not united by a common principle for which each makes some sacrifice, but by a direct exchange of votes, one set of offices being given to men of one political creed, and another set to men of another creed, is sure to arouse severe criticism. The two parties to it will always be charged with trading their principles for office and power. The Massachusetts Whigs, no longer able to appeal to anti-slavery sentiment, assailed with effect the incongruity of the coalition against them. The Republican was the enthusiastic champion of the Whig party. It

attacked the Democrats as insincere, and told the Freesoilers they were being made a cat's-paw, and would never get their promised reward. The enthusiasm of a party name and history; the claim of consistency and sincerity, opposed to a hybrid coalition for the spoils of office; the allegiance to a great party chief,-these sentiments gave ardor to the politics of the Republican. It was whole-hearted in its devotion to the Whig partyWhig cause cannot be said, for in truth the party stood no longer for living ideas. It was rich in memories, but bankrupt in great principles, save that of devotion to the Union, and even as to that it had at the North little distinction above its chief opponent, the Democracy. As had been foreseen, no one of their state tickets secured a majority in the popular vote. The election devolved on the legislature. The coalition was then made definite and binding. A Democrat, George Boutwell, was chosen Governor, with Democratic associates in the state offices, except a few minor places given by compact to the Freesoilers. To the fragment of a senatorial term Robert Rantoul was elected as a Democrat. For the long term, the Whig candidate was Robert C. Winthrop, and the coalition supported Charles Sumner. After a contest of some months,- a minority of the Democrats obstinately refusing to support Mr. Sumner,-the necessary votes were gained to elect him. The Republican fought the coalition with vigor, but with no such bitterness as it expressed toward the disunion Abolitionists. It treated most of the coalition leaders with personal respect, spoke well of Governor Boutwell, and when at last Mr. Sumner was elected to the Senate, said of him (May 2, 1851) that he was a man of brilliant parts, a theorizer, and an honest humanitarian, with no experience in legislation, with no proved claims as a debater or statesman, and with his future in his own hands.

By a strange transposition, the Democratic party in Massachusetts had become for the time more friendly to freedom than the Whig. In the Democratic convention of this year, 1851, there was a great deal of strong antislavery talk. But in the Whig convention held in Springfield, September 11, there was not one voice in rebuke of slavery, aggression. The Compromise, the Union, and Webster, were the unanimous cry. The resolutions in one paragraph declare: "The Whigs of Massachusetts will faithfully perform every duty imposed upon them by the Constitution of the United States, and they call upon their brethren in every state in the Union to respect and observe all its constitutional provisions." The only "duty imposed by the Constitution" as to which there was the least question in the public mind, was the return of fugitive slaves. To this the resolution evidently pointed, and to enforce this duty was the chief burden of the address to the people issued by the convention. No wonder that Palfrey said, when in the following week he allied himself with the Free-soil party at its convention, that the Whig resolutions and addresses had sent him there: "No man could read those resolutions without being struck down by conviction as St. Paul was." At the Springfield convention the Webster influence dominated everything. Winthrop was nominated for governor, and Ashmun, Everett, and Seth Sprague were appointed delegates to the national convention of the following year.

The Republican was enthusiastic over the harmony and success of the state convention. It cheered on the Whigs through the ensuing campaign, throwing its weight mainly upon state issues, in which the coalition had by no means made a brilliant success. It also had something to say for a high tariff. The coalitionists gave prominence rather to national than state issues.

They again carried the legislature, though by a reduced and narrow majority, and with it the state offices. For governor, the popular vote was, in round numbers: Winthrop, 65,000; Boutwell, 44,000; Palfrey, 28,000,-a fair measure of the relative strength of parties.

The national conventions of 1852 were held, and the nominations made. The Democratic platform declared that the Compromise of 1850 must be accepted as the end of the controversy upon slavery. In the Whig convention, Ashmun was chairman of the committee on resolutions. The Southern delegates to the convention agreed in advance upon a resolution on which they would insist, and this resolution in substance was adopted by the committee and the convention. It declared that the compromise measures, including the Fugitive Slave law, were accepted and acquiesced in by the Whig party, "as a final settlement in principle and substance of the dangerous and exciting questions which they embrace," and that all further agitation of such questions should be discountenanced. This platform was adopted by 227 votes to 66. For the presidential nomination the rivals were Mr. Fillmore, Mr. Webster, and General Scott. The latter was supported by the anti-slavery Whigs,- for little apparent reason save that he was not as objectionable as his competitors,—but was chiefly prominent from his military prestige. Webster had little support save from Massachusetts, whose delegation stood by him, with the exception of Henry L. Dawes, who voted for Scott. The real contest was between Scott and Fillmore, and at last Scott was nominated. He cordially accepted the platform, and thereby took away all enthusiasm from the anti-slavery element of the party; while such Southerners as Stephens and Toombs of Georgia refused to support him because the anti-slavery wing had favored him. The Democrats had