The Whig, which succeeded the old Federal party,
though by no means identical with it, was, in the main, favorable to a
strong central government, therein antagonizing the transatlantic
traditions connected with its name. The "Know-Nothing," or "American,"
party, which sprang into existence on the decadence of the Whig
organization, based upon opposition to the alleged overgrowth of the
political influence of naturalized foreigners and of the Roman Catholic
Church, had but a brief duration, and after the Presidential election of
1856 declined as rapidly as it had arisen.
At the period to which this narrative has advanced, the "Free-Soil,"
which had now assumed the title of "Republican" party, had grown to a
magnitude which threatened speedily to obtain entire control of the
Government. Based, as has been shown, upon sectional rivalry and
opposition to the growth of the Southern equally with the Northern
States of the Union, it had absorbed within itself not only the
abolitionists, who were avowedly agitating for the destruction of the
system of negro servitude, but other diverse and heterogeneous elements
of opposition to the Democratic party. In the Presidential election of
1856, their candidates (Fremont and Dayton) had received 114 of a total
of 296 electoral votes, representing a popular vote of 1,341,264 in a
total of 4,053,967. The elections of the ensuing year (1857) exhibited a
diminution of the so-called "Republican" strength, and the Thirty-fifth
Congress, which convened in December of that year, was decidedly
Democratic in both branches.
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