History of the United States from the earliest discovery of America to the end of 1902 . III.—16 242 THE YEARS OF SLAVERY [1850 reference of anti-slavery petitions, boastedof the atrocities at Utica in 1835 and ofothers similar, as proof that resistance tothese dangerous and wicked agitators inthe North had reached a point beyond lawand above law. A bill, in 1836, for closingthe mails to abolitionist literature, anotherdefiance of the Constitution, AmendmentI., secured engrossment in the Senate bythe casting vote of Vice-President VanBuren ; Wright, Tallmadge, and Buchananalso favoring ; but f
History of the United States from the earliest discovery of America to the end of 1902 . III.—16 242 THE YEARS OF SLAVERY [1850 reference of anti-slavery petitions, boastedof the atrocities at Utica in 1835 and ofothers similar, as proof that resistance tothese dangerous and wicked agitators inthe North had reached a point beyond lawand above law. A bill, in 1836, for closingthe mails to abolitionist literature, anotherdefiance of the Constitution, AmendmentI., secured engrossment in the Senate bythe casting vote of Vice-President VanBuren ; Wright, Tallmadge, and Buchananalso favoring ; but failed to pass, nineteento twenty-five, because Benton, Clay, andCrittenden had the patriotism to votenay. Discussion hereon laid bare the vitalcontradiction in our governmental showed that the Constitution per-mits each State for itself to define, in orderto inhibit, incendiary literature. Character-istically, he would have forced mail agentsto obey state laws upon this matter. Yetfor Congress to have so directed wouldplainly have been abridging freedom of Thomas H. Benton. i85o] SLAVERY AND THE OLt> PARTIES 245 Had the Whig Party, while in powerfrom 1849 to 1853, been brave enoughboldly to assume a rational anti-slaveryattitude, though it might .have been de-feated, as it was in 1852, it would have hada future. The chance passed temporizing attitude of the partysthen leaders and the known pro-slaveryfeeling of most of its southern members—-twelve Whigs voting in the House for therepeal of the Missouri Compromise—?proved deadly to the organization, its faith-ful old battalions going over in the Southto the Democrats, in the North to theRepublicans. Many Whigs took the latter course bya circuitous route. Ever since the alienand sedition laws, cry had been raised atintervals against the too easy attainmentof citizenship by the unnumbered immi-grants thronging to our shores, and agita-tion raised, more or less successful, tothrust
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