popular; an address calling for a meeting of southern
members to protest against the action of Congress
was circulated, but it failed to receive sufficient en-
dorsement to warrant such action. ² During the can-
vass there was also much talk of running an independ-
ent candidate to offset the nomination of Van Buren
in the North and to break down the force of party
lines in the South. ³

While the Whigs repelled all insinuations that they
were untrue to southern rights or even less zealous in
their defense than the Democrats, they had thus far
kept free from connection with the extreme remedies
that had been suggested. They represented, indeed,
the conservative element in their section; their recent
training had been in the nationalistic school where they
had learned to sacrifice many local interests in order to
secure greater advantages for the whole country. "The
particular local considerations", said a southern Whig,
"which color the opinions of members of the party, in
various sections of the Union, ought not to interfere
with the great national measures which we are endea-
voring to carry out, nor with the confidence due to each
other." ⁴ Amid "differences of opinion as to the good
and evil of Southern institutions, there is but one opin-
ion as to the paramount importance of the Union. On
this first point of policy the Whigs of all the States are
essentially and profoundly conservative". ⁵

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