On the other side the increasingly insistent demand of the Southern extremists for the nationalization of slavery and their apparent ability to force such nationalization, through fugitive slave laws against which the consciences even of the most devoted lovers of the Union at the North revolted, and through the decisions of the Supreme Court, bred in that quarter a similar despair of lasting union. Hundreds of thousands who did not sympathize with the purpose to stir up servile war despairingly felt that the time had come when the demands of what was called "the slave power" must be resisted at any and all risks, and resigned themselves to the employment of any means that might be found necessary to that end. They felt that all compromises had failed, that all efforts to enable this Nation, as Mr. Lincoln phrased it, "permanently to endure half slave and half free," had been defeated and shown to be futile. In brief, on both sides of the line of cleavage, a spirit of despairing readiness for any remedy, however drastic it might be, had been created by the inexorable circumstances of the "irrepressible conflict." There is no doubt whatever that if the situation had been clearly understood, nine in ten of all Northern people would have shrunk with horror from such a program of destruction as that which John Brown's raid implied and intended--namely the overthrow of the United States Government and the inauguration of a servile insurrection at the South. But the conditions were not clearly understood upon either side. Upon neither side did the people really know precisely how the facts of the situation presented themselves to the people on the other side. On neither side was there enough of calm, impartial deliberation to distinguish between the excesses of sentiment and conduct and provoking self-assertion on the part of extremists on the other side and the settled purposes of the great majority. Still worse, on neither side was there enough resolute calmness to relegate the small body of extremists to their proper place as a minority, and to take matters out of their hands. The thought of secession rapidly gained ground at the South. The "slangy" slogan of N. P. Banks--"Let the Union slide"--was accepted as a policy by increasing multitudes at the North. It was in such conditions that political parties made their preparations for the presidential campaign of 1860. The Democratic party represented the only opposition to Republicanism which had any hope or possibility of success. It was in a clear and commanding majority in the Nation. The old Whig party had dwindled to a remnant, and the greater part of that remnant would have voted for the Democratic candidate in an election directly presenting the issue of Democracy and nationalism against Republicanism and a geographical division of the people into parties.