the disappearance of the Whig party, one of the two
great agencies in the disciplining and educating of the immigrant was
lost.

For a time the Native American party seemed likely to take the place
of the moribund Whig party. Many Whigs whose loyalty had grown cold
but who would not go over to the enemy, took refuge in the new party.
But Native Americanism had no enduring strength. Its tenets and its
methods were in flat contradiction to true American precedents.
Greeley was right when he said of the new party, "It would seem as
devoid of the elements of persistence as an anti-cholera or an
anti-potato-rot party would be." By its avowed hostility to Catholics
and foreigners, by its insistence upon America for Americans, and by
its secrecy, it forfeited all real claims to succeed the Whig party as
a national organization.

After the downfall of the Whig party, then, the Democratic party stood
alone as a truly national party, preserving the integrity of its
national organization and the bulk of its legitimate members. But the
events of President Pierce's administration threatened to be its
undoing. If the Kansas-Nebraska bill served to unite outwardly the
Northern and Southern wings of the party, it served also to
crystallize those anti-slavery elements which had hitherto been held
in solution. An anti-Nebraska coalition was the outcome. Out of this
opposition sprang eventually the Republican party, which was,
therefore, in its inception, national neither in its organization nor
in its membership.

For "Know-Nothingism," as Native Americanism was derisively called,
Douglas had exhibited the liveliest antipathy. Shortly after the
triumph of the Know-Nothings in the municipal elections of
Philadelphia, he was called upon to give the Independence Day address
in the historic Independence Square.[508] With an audacity rarely
equalled, he seized the occasion to defend the great principle of
self-government as incorporated in the Nebraska bill, just become law,
and to beard Know-Nothingism in its den. Under guise of defending
national institutions and American principles, he turned his oration
into what was virtually the first campaign speech of the year in
behalf of Democracy. Never before were the advantages of a party name
so apparent. Under his skillful touch the cause of popular government,
democracy, religious and civil liberty, became confounded with the
cause of Democracy, the only party of the nation which stood op