Third Party System - Ideology

Ideology

The ideological force driving the new party was modernization, and opposition to the anti-modern threat of slavery. By 1856 the Republicans were crusading for "Free Soil, Free Labor, Frémont and Victory." The main argument was that a "Slave Power" had seized control of the federal government and would try to make slavery legal in the territories, and perhaps even in the northern states. That would give obnoxiously rich slave owners the chance to go anywhere and buy up the best land, thus undercutting the wages of free labor and destroying the foundations of civil society. The Democratic response was to countercrusade in 1856, warning that the election of Republican candidate John C. Frémont would produce civil war. The outstanding leader of the Democrats was Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas ‒ he believed that the democratic process in each state or territory should settle the slavery question. When President James Buchanan tried to rig politics in Kansas Territory to approve slavery, Douglas broke with him, presaging the split that ruined the party in 1860. That year, Northern Democrats nominated Douglas as the candidate of democracy, while the southern wing put up John Breckenridge as the upholder of the rights of property and of states rights, which in this context meant slavery. In the South, ex-Whigs organized an ad-hoc "Constitutional Union" Party, pledging to keep the nation united on the basis of the Constitution, regardless of democracy, states rights, property or liberty. The Republicans played it safe in 1860, passing over better-known radicals in favor of a moderate border state politician known to be an articulate advocate of liberty. Abraham Lincoln made no speeches, letting the party apparatus march the armies to the polls. Even if all three of Lincoln's opponents had formed a common ticket–quite impossible in view of their ideological differences–his 40 percent of the vote was enough to carry the North and thus win the Electoral College.