CHAPTER III.
ATTEMPTS TO NULLIFY THE COMPROMISE.
WHILE this apparently factious but dangerous opposition to the stability of the compromise settlement was being thus pressed among the Northern States, the political parties were preparing for the Presidential election of 1852.
The Democratic State conventions sent delegates to the national convention at Baltimore June i, 1852, thoroughly impressed with the view that the settlement was fully agreed to by the people of the United States, and consequently political controversies must be caused by questions not so sectional as that of slavery. Resolutions were passed re-affirming the principles of the compromise and pronouncing against further slavery agitation in Congress.
The Whig party, meeting in national convention the same month, passed strictly State Rights resolutions and also resolved that the compromise was a settlement in principle and substance of the dangerous and exciting questions thus settled. The resolutions pledged the Whig party to "discountenance all efforts to continue or