Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/251

 Rh public confidence to be overthrown. The Missouri Compromise, which was mainly a Southern measure, had allayed the storm. A majority of the Northern Republicans exerted their influence to quiet the agitation, but all felt that the hold of the Republican party had been loosened. In the subsequent readjustment of parties under the new names of Democrat and Whig, while sectional influences may be traced through the several Presidential elections, yet the complete division on the slave line was averted until the triumph of the new Republican party in 1860.

Meanwhile, the slavery agitation, though not brought to issue by any decisive political crisis, was continued both by discussions in Congress and by irritating publications. The North went to work systematically to stimulate immigration. Societies, known as Immigration Aid societies, etc., devoted organized efforts to attract immigrants and to control them. The effort was soon visible. Its representation in the popular branch of Congress was 135, while the number of representatives from the Slave States was only 98. So far, the number of States on each side was equal, but the Southern supply was exhausted. On the Northern side of the line, a formidable array were approaching readiness for admission. The slavery agitation was becoming more threatening in tone. Beginning as a movement to limit the area open to slavery and to retard Southern emigration into the territories by rendering the removal of their slaves unsafe, it now began to assume the form of hostility to the institution of slavery, and to threaten abolition by act of the Federal government. Though in 1844 the organized movement in favor of abolition was incomplete and powerless, yet it was growing, and the immense expanse of territory north of the line pointed out that the balance of power would soon be in the hands of those who threatened the Southern institution.