This change, beginning with the defeat of Van Buren in 1844, was at first slow; but it had afterwards moved so rapidly and so far, that men in the North, who wished to remain in the ranks of the Democracy, were compelled to trample on the principles, and surrender the prejudices, of a lifetime.
Blaine describes the struggle of Northern Democrats to reconcile their beliefs with the party's evolving stance.
Share
More from James Blaine
Another theory and another practice were now to prevail; for it had been demonstrated to the thoughtful statesmen who then controlled the Government, that every thing which may be done by either Nation or State may be better and more…
Their convention did more to popularize the Fourteenth Amendment as a political issue than any other instrumentality of the year.
Many Northern Democrats had indeed given the assurance that if any attempt at coercion should be made by the Republican National Administration, they would themselves meet it with force, and that, if war should come, it would be in the…
Emboldened by the support of the National Administration, the Southern leaders believed that they could carry their designs through, and, instead of being restrained by the protest or the advice of Republicans, they chose with apparent…
Other voices in this conversation
