RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY.--The hatred which the National Republicans felt for Jackson was intense. They accused him of trying to set up a despotic government, and, asserting that they were contending against the same kind of tyranny our forefathers fought against in the War of Independence, they called themselves Whigs. In the state elections of 1834 the new name came into general use, and thenceforth for many years there was a national Whig party. THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT.--The Missouri Compromise was supposed to have settled the issue of slavery. But its effect was just the reverse. Antislavery agitators were aroused. The antislavery newspapers grew more numerous and aggressive. New antislavery societies were formed and old ones were revived and became aggressive, and in 1833 delegates from many of them met at Philadelphia and formed the American Antislavery Society. [13] ANTISLAVERY DOCUMENTS.--The field of work for the anti-slavery people was naturally the South. That section was flooded with newspapers, pamphlets, pictures, and handbills intended to stir up sentiment for instant abolition of slavery and liberation of the slaves. [Illustration: SLAVE QUARTERS ON A SOUTHERN PLANTATION.] Against this the South protested, declared such documents were likely to cause slaves to run away or rise in insurrection, and called on the North to suppress them. PROSLAVERY MOBS.--To stop their circulation by legal means was not possible; so attempts were made to do it by illegal means. In many Northern cities, as Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Utica, and elsewhere, mobs broke up the antislavery meetings. In Charleston, South Carolina, the postmaster seized some antislavery documents and the people burned them. At Cincinnati the newspaper office of James G. Birney was twice sacked and his presses destroyed (1836). Another at Alton, Illinois, was four times attacked, and the owner, Elijah Lovejoy, was at last killed by the mob while protecting his press. THE RIGHT OF PETITION.--Not content with this, the pro-slavery people attempted to pass a bill through Congress (1836) to exclude antislavery documents from the mails, and even attacked the right of petition. The bill to close the mails to antislavery documents failed. But the attempt to exclude antislavery petitions from the House of Representatives succeeded: a "Gag Rule" was adopted which forbade any petition, resolution, or paper relating in any way to slavery or the abolition of slavery to be received, and this was in force down to 1844. [14] OUR COUNTRY OUT OF DEBT.--Despite all this political commotion our country for years past had prospered greatly. In this prosperity the government had shared. Its income had far exceeded its expenses, and by using the surplus year by year to reduce the national debt it succeeded in paying the last dollar by 1835.