as in a
chaotic state and had not yet received a name. It had no existence in
the Slave States except at points on the borders next to Free States.
In St. Louis City and County, what afterwards became the Republican
party was known as the Free-Soil Democracy, led by the Honorable Frank
P. Blair. Most of my neighbors had known me as an officer of the army
with Whig proclivities. They had been on the same side, and, on the
death of their party, many had become Know-Nothings, or members of the
American party. There was a lodge near my new home, and I was invited to
join it. I accepted the invitation; was initiated; attended a meeting
just one week later, and never went to another afterwards.

I have no apologies to make for having been one week a member of the
American party; for I still think native-born citizens of the United
States should have as much protection, as many privileges in their
native country, as those who voluntarily select it for a home. But all
secret, oath-bound political parties are dangerous to any nation, no
matter how pure or how patriotic the motives and principles which first
bring them together. No political party can or ought to exist when one
of its corner-stones is opposition to freedom of thought and to the
right to worship God "according to the dictate of one's own conscience,"
or according to the creed of any religious denomination whatever.
Nevertheless, if a sect sets up its laws as binding above the State
laws, wherever the two come in conflict this claim must be resisted and
suppressed at whatever cost.

Up to the Mexican war there were a few out and out abolitionists, men
who carried their hostility to slavery into all elections, from those
for a justice of the peace up to the Presidency of the United States.
They were noisy but not numerous. But the great majority of people at
the North, where slavery did not exist, were opposed to the institution,
and looked upon its existence in any part of the country as unfortunate.
They did not hold the States where slavery existed responsible for it;
and believed that protection should be given to the right of property in
slaves until some satisfactory way could be reached to be rid of the
institution. Opposition to slavery was not a creed of either political
party. In some sections more anti-slavery men belonged to the
Democratic party, and in others to the Whigs. But with the inauguration
of the Mexican war, in fact with the annexat