Anecdotes of public men; by John W. Forney.

54 ANECDOTES OF PUBLIC MEN.
ing made some of the strongest arguments for protection, thus
exactly changing places with Daniel Webster. When, however,
slavery began to dominate the field, we had a succession of
astonishing transformations. States wheeled out of one party
into another with magical celerity. Democratic fortresses like
Maine, New Hampshire, Illinois, Iowa, Pennsylvania, New
York, and Ohio, which had stood by the Democracy in every
trial, and had routed the Whigs in repeated campaigns, joined
the Republican column, while veteran Democrats like Hamlin
of Maine, Trumbull of Illinois, Wilmot of Pennsylvania, D. K.
Cartter of Ohio, Preston King and Reuben E. Fenton, of New
York, Morton of Indiana, ranged themselves on the same side,
not as privates, but as general officers, each with an army at
his back. There was little compensation for these losses. It
is true the South consolidated to save the peculiar institution,
but little was gained by the halting support of such formerly
intense Whig States as Maryland and Kentucky. They could
not so readily forget their devotion to Clay and their hatred of
Jackson. The sectionalism born of slavery also gave rise to war,
and then came some of the strangest of revolutions. Hundreds
of thousands of Democrats became Republicans when they saw
the treatment that Reeder and Douglas, and their compatriots,
had received; but the oddest sight was to see hosts of " Oldline Whigs," who had been denouncing slavery all their lives,
joining the Democrats! Hon. James Brooks, of New York,
and Hon. Josiah Randall, of Philadelphia, were the pioneers in
this singular diversion; and they were followed by quite a procession of men of the same school when hostilities commenced.
There is now hardly a considerable town in the United States
in which some " Old-line Whig " is not among the Democratic
leaders. Most notable of these are the grandsons of Johr
Quincy Adams. The living junior of that name is an accepteC
authority, and one of his brothers is said to be among the best
of the numerous writers for the New York WorlM, whose edito