Clash of Extremes by Marc Egnal

Author:Marc Egnal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2009-02-26T16:00:00+00:00

IV.

The November 1856 election showed that the new party gained its strength from voters in the lake districts as well as from those who had been singed by the flames of abolitionist fervor. The largest concentrations of Republican voters resided in the counties near the lakes and in rural New England, but there were also important pockets of supporters in the middle states and Midwest (see Maps 6 and 7).

In every state former Whigs comprised the largest group of Republican voters. Lake Whigs, in particular, stood out as a key Republican constituency. They were attracted by the party’s antislavery planks and its advocacy of the “improvement of rivers and harbors.” New England Whigs, especially those from the small towns and rural communities, enthusiastically backed the new party. Many had long criticized the South and applauded the economic policies that Republicans now espoused. The presence of former Whigs would provide fertile soil in the coming years for those urging an active approach to development.38

Not all Whigs, however, rushed to the party’s standard. The pattern of economic growth that divided the lake economy from the lower North affected political allegiances. Most Whigs who resided in New Jersey, along the southern border of Pennsylvania, or in the Ohio Valley disdained the Republicans and voted for Fillmore. In the major cities wealthy merchants and manufacturers, once a mainstay of Clay’s party, refused to join the new organization. Many had business ties with the South or were linked to others involved in those exchanges. Charles Dana, who assisted Greeley at the New-York Tribune, reported during the campaign, “The money is almost all through. The rich men here, who used to give as Whigs, are now for Fillmore or Buchanan.”39

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