CHAPTER X."BLEEDING KANSAS".
Both the leading political parties were, in the campaign of 1852, fully committed to the acceptance of the so-called Compromise of 1850 as a final settlement of the slavery question; both were committed to the support of the Fugitive Slave Act.

The Free-soil party, with John P.
Hale as its candidate, did make a vigorous attack upon the Fugitive Slave Act, and opposed all compromises respecting slavery, but Free-Boilers had been to a large extent reabsorbed into the Democratic party, their vote of 1852 being only about half that of 1848.

Though the Whig vote was large and only about two hundred thousand less than that of the Democrats, yet it was so distributed that the Whigs carried only four States, Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

The other States gave a Democratic plurality.
Had there been time for readjustment, the Whig party might have recovered lost ground, but no time was permitted.

There was in progress in Missouri a political conflict which was already commanding national attention.