Do National Parties Maintain National Unity?

What did national parties often do to maintain national unity in regards to the slavery issue? Generally-speaking, the national parties essentially turned a blind eye towards the slavery issue, in order to bar further tensions from erupting. Portrayed in yet another manner, such parties, whether it be the Whigs or Democrats alike, failed to explicitly embrace the issue by adopting a particular standpoint. Evidence from the text that further bolsters this claim is shown when the authors state, “To politicians, the wisest strategy seemed to be to sit on the lid of the slavery issue and ignore the boiling beneath. Even so, the cover bobbed up and down ominously in response to the agitation of zealous northern abolitionists and impassioned southern ‘fire-eaters’” (Cohen …show more content…
Portrayed in yet another manner, they were rendered the ability of deeming their corresponding state “free” or “slave”. Evidence from the text that further supports this claim is shown when the authors state, “But Cass himself had not been silent. His views on the extension of slavery were well known because he was the reputed father of ‘popular sovereignty.’ This was the doctrine that stated that the sovereign people of a territory, under the general principles of the Constitution, should themselves determine the status of slavery” (Cohen & Kennedy 381). The quote above sheds light upon the primary components of the doctrine of “popular sovereignty”, in that it re-instated the notion of self-determination. To add to this, America’s prehensile grasp of democracy’s ideals was exemplified, thanks to the introduction of this privilege to the states. In brief, “popular sovereignty” served as one of the numerous attempts to allay the rifts that existed between the northerners and southerners alike, from a slavery-oriented