Briefly, this party
bequeathed the temper of political positivism and at the same
time the dread of sectionalism. The inner clue to American
politics during the next few years is, to many minds, to be found
largely in the union of this old Whig temper with a new-born
sectional patriotism, and, to other minds, in the gradual and
reluctant passing of the Whig opposition to a sectional party.
But though this transformation of the wrecks of Whiggism began
immediately, and while the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was still being
hotly debated in Congress, it was not until 1860 that it was
completed.
In the meantime various incidents had shown that the sectional
patriotism of the North, the fury of the abolitionists, and the
positive temper in politics, were all drawing closer together.
Each of these tendencies can be briefly illustrated. For
example, the rush to Kansas had begun, and the Massachusetts
Emigrant Aid Society was preparing to assist settlers who were
going west. In May, there occurred at Boston one of the most
conspicuous attempts to rescue a fugitive slave, in which a mob
led by Thomas Wentworth Higginson attacked the guards of Anthony
Burns, a captured fugitive, killed one of them, but failed to get
the slave, who was carried to a revenue cutter between lines of
soldiers and returned to slavery.
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