By reckless daring a minority of Southern men raised a storm of sectional passion to which the friends of the Union bowed their heads and surrendered.
It would be incorrect to speak of a Whig party in the South at the outbreak of the civil war.

There were many Whigs, but their organization was gone.

It was the destruction of that party which had prepared the way for a triumph of the Democratic Disunionists.
In the day of their strength the Whigs could not have been overborne in the South by the Secessionists, nor would the experiment have been tried.

No party in the United States ever presented a more brilliant array of talent than the Whigs.

In the South, though always resting under the imputation of not being so devoted to the support of Slavery as their opponents, they yet maintained themselves, by the power of intellect and by the prestige of chivalric leadership, in some extraordinary political battles.