The repeal of the Missouri Compromise made the slavery question paramount in every State of the Union. The boasted finality was a broken reed; the life-boat of compromise a hopeless wreck. If the agreement of a generation could be thus annulled in a breath, was there any safety even in the Constitution itself? This feeling communicated itself to the Northern States at the very first note of warning, and every man's party fealty was at once decided by his toleration of or opposition to slavery. While the fate of the Nebraska bill hung in a doubtful balance in the House, the feeling found expression in letters, speeches, meetings, petitions, and remonstrances. Men were for or against the bill--every other political subject was left in abeyance. The measure once passed, and the Compromise repealed, the first natural impulse was to combine, organize, and agitate for its restoration. This was the ready-made, common ground of cooperation. It is probable that this merely defensive energy would have been overcome and dissipated, had it not at this juncture been inspirited and led by the faction known as the Free-soil party of the country, composed mainly of men of independent anti-slavery views, who had during four presidential campaigns been organized as a distinct political body, with no near hope of success, but animated mainly by the desire to give expression to their deep personal convictions. If there were demagogues here and there among them, seeking merely to create a balance of power for bargain and sale, they were unimportant in number, and only of local influence, and soon became deserters. There was no mistaking the earnestness of the body of this faction. A few fanatical men, who had made it the vehicle of violent expressions, had kept it under the ban of popular prejudice. It had long been held up to public odium as a revolutionary band of "abolitionists." Most of the abolitionists were doubtless in this party, but the party was not all composed of abolitionists. Despite objurgation and contempt, it had become since 1840 a constant and growing factor in politics. It had operated as a negative balance of power in the last three presidential elections, causing by its diversion of votes, and more especially by its relaxing influence upon parties, the success of the Democratic candidate, James K. Polk, in 1844, the Whig candidate, General Taylor, in 1848, and the Democratic nominee, Franklin Pierce, in 1852.