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It is not to be supposed that the supporters of Mr. Lincoln were very anxious about their ticket in Alabama, or those of Mr. Breckinridge as to theirs in Massachusetts. In Alabama, a Democratic slave ticket would, of course, prevail. In Massachusetts, a Republican free-soil ticket would do so.
This rallied to the free-soil standard nearly all the northern Whigs, many old Barn-burners who since 1848 had returned to the democratic fold, and vast numbers of other anti-Lecompton Democrats. Most of the Know-nothings throughout the North also joined it, while of course it had in all its anti-slavery measures the hearty co-operation, directly political or other, of the Abolitionists.
He appears to have voted with the best men. Again he would say, "If we can only once get the best man at the head of affairs we should be only too glad to turn everything over to him." Emerson, however, did not allow these theories to affect his practice. He always voted the whig ticket till 1844, and after that the free-soil and republican tickets.
He took an active part in political campaigns, and was several times a member of the House of Representatives of the State Legislature, and once of the State Senate. Tazewell County, in which he resided, became a very strong Whig county, the Whigs having their own way until the Free-soil party, which soon became the Republican party, took its place as against the Democratic party.
The free State of Illinois runs down far south between the slave States of Kentucky to the east, and of Missouri to the west, and is the most southern point of the continuous free-soil territory of the Northern States.
In most of the thirteen original States provision is made in the written constitution for the general education of the people; but this is not done in all. I find that it was more frequently done in the Northern or free-soil States than in those which admitted slavery, as might have been expected.
When the votes were counted, the extent of the defection among the Northern Whigs and Democrats who voted for Van Buren and among the Southern Democrats who had been beguiled by the epaulets of Taylor, was plainly seen. The bolting "Barnburners" had given New York to Taylor; the Free-Soil vote in Ohio, on the other hand, had thrown that State to Cass.
He was a delegate to the convention of April 1, 1840, which nominated James G. Birney for the Presidency, and took an active share in the Free-soil movement of 1844, a movement which produced exactly the opposite effect from that which was intended; for the defeat of Henry Clay opened the door for the Mexican war and the annexation of a much larger territory than Texas.
When the fight began there were four parties in the field: the Democrats, the Whigs, the Free-Soilers, and the Know-Nothings. The Free-Soil party, hitherto a small organization, had sought to make slavery the main issue in politics. Its watchword was "Free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men." It is needless to add that it was instantaneous in its opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Louis City and County, what afterwards became the Republican party was known as the Free-Soil Democracy, led by the Honorable Frank P. Blair. Most of my neighbors had known me as an officer of the army with Whig proclivities. They had been on the same side, and, on the death of their party, many had become Know-Nothings, or members of the American party.
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