Presidential campaigning in the early Genesee Country (Cont.)

When GIANTS walked the earth

"Wadsworth's Free Soilers spawned a movement which would demolish the Whigs, ransack the Democrats, smash slavery and remake America – the Republican Party."

The Whigs' rise in the Genesee Country was aided by Democratic strife. After being denied the Democratic nomination in 1844, Van Buren led the radical 'Barnburners' faction which bolted from the party regulars, the so-called 'Hunkers.'Van Buren's group was christened for its reported willingness to 'burn the whole barn down to rid the party of the rats' who supposedly 'hunkered' after patronage.

Now the great national debate over slavery further scrambled the parties. The Barnburners, led by Van Buren, took a strong abolitionist position.Many Whigs were also unhappy with their party's tendency to compromise on this issue.

In New York, opponents of the spread of slavery, like James S. Wadsworth of Geneseo, formed the Free Soil party. Promising 'Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Men,' they joined forces with the renegade Democrats in 1848 to nominate Van Buren for President at conventions in Utica and Buffalo.

This new movement drew enough votes away from the Democrats to elect Gen. Zachary Taylor, a Whig. When he died in office, Vice President Millard Fillmore became western New York's first, and so far only, President.

Wadsworth's Free Soilers were disappointed in the polls, but they spawned a movement which would demolish the Whigs, ransack the Democrats, smash slavery and remake America – the Republican Party.

A state convention for the new group, held at Angelica, Allegany County, in 1854, was among the first in the nation. A nearly similar meeting convened in nearby Friendship, Allegany County, fostered a rivalry that continues to this day over bragging rights as the party's birthplace.

Seward, who longed to follow Van Buren and Fillmore into the White House, was the country's most eligible Whig. Obviously presidential timber, he managed very effectively to whittle himself down. Seward held New York Whigs together long enough to win state elections in 1855, then merged his followers with the Republicans. This practical maneuver kept him on the outside while the new party took shape.

His lifelong duels with Fillmore offended Fillmore's followers, many of whom had gravitated to the Republicans. Then in 1858, as Lincoln and Douglas carried on the Great Debates of the Illinois Senate race, Seward made a fateful speech in Rochester. In it, he warned of an 'irrepressible conflict' building up between north and south over the issue of slavery.

In retrospect, it's hard to argue with his analysis. But John Brown had not yet come out of the night, and Fort Sumter lay neglected, near-derelict in Charleston harbor. Americans nervously drew back from Seward and his frightening prophecies. A President who saw conflict as destiny was a fearful prospect.