Anson Daniel Morse

“ The new name announced not the birth but the maturity of the party, and the definite establishment of its principles and general lines of policy. The ends for which the Whigs laboured were: first, to maintain the integrity of the Union; second, to make the Union thoroughly national; third, to maintain the republican character of the Union; fourth, while utilizing to the full the inheritance from and through Europe, to develop a distinctly American type of civilization; fifth, to propagate abroad by peaceful means American ideas and institutions. ”

“ In the North, where the inhumane Fugitive Slave Law grew daily more odious, the adherence to the Compromise on which Clay and Webster insisted weakened the party fatally. The alternative, namely, a committal of the party to the repeal of the obnoxious law, would have driven the Southern Whigs into the camp of the Democrats, leaving the Northern Whigs a sectional party powerless to resist the disruption of the Union. ”

“ When, after Waterloo, Napoleon ceased to disturb the relations of the new world with the old, the American people, freed for the first time from all trace of political dependence on Europe, were at liberty to shape their public policy in their own way. During the period of rapid internal development which followed after 1815, the all-inclusive Republican party began gradually to disintegrate and a new party system was evolved, each member of which was the representative of such groups of ideas and interests, class and local, as required the support of a separate party. ”