Up to 1850 the position of such Constitutional Unionists as Webster and Clay could be plausibly defended; but after the failure of that final compromise, it was plain that a man of any intellectual substance must seek support for his special interpretation of the Constitution by means of a special interpretation of the national idea.

That slavery was Constitutional nobody could deny, any more than they could deny the Constitutionality of anti-slavery agitation.

The real question, to which the controversy had been reduced, had become, Is slavery consistent with the principle which constitutes the basis of American national integrity--the principle of democracy?
Each of the four other factions answered this question in a different way; and every one of these answers was derived from different aspects of the system of traditional American ideas.

The Abolitionists believed that a democratic state, which ignored the natural rights proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence, was a piece of organized political hypocrisy,--worthy only of destruction.

The Southerners believed that democracy meant above all the preservation of recognized Constitutional rights in property of all kinds, and freedom from interference in the management of their local affairs.