cumstances into at least a temporary majority. Various
considerations linked in political alliance with the few
southerners whose interests and inclinations led to the
support of latitudinarian principles, a still larger faction
made up of those who supported constitutional doc-
trines on the opposite extreme and whose logical inter-
ests generally seemed to point against such an affiliation.
The early history of the party in the South is unified
by the interesting set of problems which grew out of
the need for the adjustment of these two wings to har-
monious action. When once those problems seemed to
be mastered, a similar division began in consequence of
the slavery agitation which threatened to bring the
party to a state of disorganization similar to that which
characterized the first years of its existence. The his-
tory of the Whig party in the South is thus divided into
two periods of nearly equal length, the campaign of
1844 serving as the period of transition which witnessed
the solution of its first set of problems and brought into
the arena a new set that was eventually to work the
destruction of the national party.

In analyzing the elements included in the ranks of
the southern Whig organization, it is natural to turn
first to the advocates of the American system, but in
the beginning their numbers were quite insignificant.
In 1832 Clay carried Kentucky and Maryland and
secured a fair vote in Louisiana and Virginia. On the
other hand, Jackson was offered almost no opposition
in Tennessee, Missouri, Mississippi, and Georgia. In
his own state Clay had, of course, a large personal fol-
lowing. In addition the hemp interests there made
friends for the tariff, while the need of communica-
tion and the river system of the state made popular the

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