h him were associated, in and out of Congress,
Mr. Seward, Mr. Benjamin F. Wade, Mr. Fessenden, Mr. Giddings, Mr.
Thaddeus Stevens, besides a large number of able and resolute men
of less public distinction, but of equal earnestness, in all parts
of the North. Subsequent events have led men to forget that Millard
Fillmore, then a representative from New York, was one of Mr.
Adams's early co-laborers in the anti-slavery cause, and that in
the important debate on the admission of Arkansas, with a constitution
making slavery perpetual, Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts led the
radical free sentiment of New England. A large number of distinguished
Democrats in the North also entertained the strongest anti-slavery
convictions, and were determined, at the risk of separating from
their party associates, to resist the spread of slavery into free
territory. Among the most conspicuous of these were Salmon P.
Chase, John P. Hale, Hannibal Hamlin, Preston King, John M. Niles,
David Wilmot, David K. Cartter, and John Wentworth. They had many
co-laborers and a band of determined and courageous followers.
They were especially strong in the State of New York, and, under
the name of Barnburners, wrought changes which affected the political
history of the entire country.

The two great parties on the eve of the Mexican war were thus
somewhat similarly situated. In the South all the members of both
were, by the supposed necessity of their situation, upholders of
slavery, though the Democrats were on this question more aggressive,
more truculent, and more menacing, than the Whigs. The Southern
Whigs, under the lead of Mr. Clay, had been taught that slavery
was an evil, to be removed in some practicable way at some distant
period, but not to be interfered with, in the States where it
existed, by outside influence or force. The Democrats, under the
head of Mr. Calhoun, defended the institution of slavery as right
in itself, as scripturally authorized, as essential in the economy
of labor, and as a blessing to both races. In the North both
parties were divided on the question; each had its anti-slavery
wing and its pro-slavery wing, with many local names to distinguish
them. Between the two a relentless controversy began,--a controversy
marked as much by epithet as by argument, and conducted with such
exasperation of feeling as clearly foreshadowed a break of existing
party lines, and the formation of new associations, through which,