The Formative Period
contest for the senatorship from Illinois. But all were now agreed that in the presence of issues that overshadowed all their former party differences they must agree to hold these latter in abeyance and to unite for the settlement of the former. Yet to some extent they brought into the composition of the new party the best characteristics of the old ones. The Whigs, who formed not only a plurality but probably a considerable majority of the combination, impressed upon it their broad and liberal views of constitutional construction. The Democrats contributed a passionate loyalty to the Union, devotion to the legitimate rights of the states and a fine conception of the equal rights of all men under the law. The Free Soilers who, more than either of the others, had been a party of one idea infused the whole with their passionate determination that there should be no further extension of slavery.
This last named principle was indeed the foremost and strongest in the minds of all. There was no purpose to interfere with slavery where it lawfully existed or where it might be lawfully extended under the terms of the Missouri Compromise. Though all believed with Lincoln that the Union could not permanently exist half slave and half free, they had sufficient faith in the superior virtues of free labor to believe that in time the problem would be solved by the irresistible force of economic laws, and that the institution of slavery would perish through its own unsoundness. They were, however, inflexibly determined that slavery should not be extended into the territories which had been dedicated to freedom. All through the spring and early summer of 1854 meetings were held and correspondence was conducted, culminating in a mass meeting at Ripon,
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