22 was called “Mason and Dixon’s Line” from the names of two surveyors, who years before had established the line between Maryland and Pennsylvania. THE WHIG PARTY. Andrew Jackson, Democrat, followed John Quincy Adams. He assailed the Bank of the United States, modeled somewhat after the plan of the Bank of England, withdrew the deposits and placed them in State banks. The opponents of this policy took the name of Whigs, from the Whig party in England, which had resisted the arbitrary measures of the King. Henry Clay was twice the Whig candidate for the Presidency, and defeated both times. The Whig party was too politic on the slavery question, and the Liberty party, and the Free Soil party, both opposed to the extension of slavery, were organized. Slavery had now become dominant. It’s foot was on the neck of Congress. Even Daniel Webster bowed to its dominion. The Democratic party, largely pro-slavery, began to assert that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the Territories, and that therefore the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. THE REPEAL OF THE COMPROMISE was finally effected in 1854, and the Territories were left to decide whether they would have slavery or not. At once Kansas became the battle ground. Armed men came over from Missouri to establish slavery. Men came from New England and the East determined to have free soil, if they spilled theirblood to gain it. The Fugitive Slave Law, whereby slaves were returned without trial by jury, and slave owners allowed to search the North for their slaves, made great bitterness. A new party was inevitable. In 1854, some States had taken steps toward this new party, and February 22, 1856, the FIRST REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION was rheld in Pittsburgh, Pa., which prepared the way for the second convention at Philadelphia, June 17th, when John C. Fremont was nominated for the Presidency. One of its foundation stones was the demanding of the prohibition of slavery in the Territories. In the following May, the brutal attack of Preston Brooks, of South Carolina, on Charles Sumner, for lais speech
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