Even the Whig party in 1841, with Mr.Clay for a leader, did not stand so solidly against John Tyler as the Republican party, under the lead of Fessenden and Sumner in the Senate and of Thaddeus Stevens in the House, now stood against the Administration of President Johnson.

The Whigs of the country, in the former crisis, lost many of their leading and most brilliant men,--a sufficient number indeed to compass the defeat of Mr.
Clay three years later.

The loss to the Republican party now was so small as to be unfelt and almost invisible in the political contests into which the party was soon precipitated.

The Whigs of 1841 were contending only for systems of finance, and they broke finally with the President because of his veto of a bill establishing a fiscal agency for the use of the Government,--merely a National Bank disguised under another name.

The Republicans of 1866 were contending for a vastly greater stake,--for the sacredness of human rights, for the secure foundation of free government.