It was perhaps an instinct rather than any clear spirit of prophecy which drove the antislavery Democrats away from their affiliations and kept the Whigs, for the moment, substantially together. So far as the authorized utterances of their conventions were concerned, there was little to choose between them. They had both evaded any profession of faith in regard to slavery. The Democrats had rejected the resolution offered by Yancey committing them to the doctrine of "non-interference with the rights of property in the territories," and the Whigs had never allowed the Wilmot proviso to be voted upon. But nevertheless those Democrats who felt that the time had come to put a stop to the aggression of slavery, generally threw off their partisan allegiance, and the most ardent of the antislavery Whigs,--with some exceptions it is true, especially in Ohio and in Massachusetts, where the strength of the "Conscience Whigs," led by Sumner, the Adamses, and Henry Wilson, was important,--thought best to remain with their party. General Taylor was a Southerner and a slaveholder. In regard to all questions bearing upon slavery, he observed a discretion in the canvass which was almost ludicrous. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote (3) relocated to chapter end.] Yet there was a well-nigh universal impression among the antislavery Whigs that his administration would be under influences favorable to the restriction of slavery. Clay, Webster, and Seward, all of whom were agreed at that time against any extension of the area of that institution, supported him with more or less cordiality. Webster insisted upon it that the Whigs were themselves the best "Free-soilers," and for them to join the party called by that distinctive name would be merely putting Mr. Van Buren at the head of the Whig party. Mr. Seward, speaking for Taylor at Cleveland, took still stronger ground, declaring that slavery "must be abolished;" that "freedom and slavery are two antagonistic elements of society in America;" that "the party of freedom seeks complete and universal emancipation." No one then seems to have foreseen that the Whig party--then on the eve of a great victory--was so near its dissolution, and that the bolting Democrats and the faithful Whigs were alike engaged in laying the foundations of a party which was to glorify the latter half of the century with achievements of such colossal and enduring importance.