J. Donelson for
Vice-President, who remained in the field and were voted for, to some
extent, in the presidential election, the organization was present only
as a crippled and disturbing factor, and disappeared totally from
politics in the following years.
Both North and South, party lines adjusted themselves defiantly upon the
single issue, for or against men and measures representing the extension
or restriction of slavery. The Democratic party, though radically
changing its constituent elements, retained the party name, and became
the party of slavery extension, having forced the repeal and supported
the resulting measures; while the Whig party entirely disappeared, its
members in the Northern States joining the Anti-Nebraska Democrats in
the formation of the new Republican party. Southern Whigs either went
boldly into the Democratic camp, or followed for a while the delusive
prospects of the Know-Nothings.
This party change went on somewhat slowly in the State of Illinois,
because that State extended in territorial length from the latitude of
Massachusetts to that of Virginia, and its population contained an
equally diverse local sentiment. The northern counties had at once
become strongly Anti-Nebraska; the conservative Whig counties of the
center inclined to the Know-Nothings; while the Kentuckians and
Carolinians, who had settled the southern end, had strong antipathies to
what they called abolitionism, and applauded Douglas and repeal.
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