John F. Hume, The abolitionists together with personal memories of the struggle for human rights

[12] slaveholders who disliked Douglas, the regular Democratic nominee, much more than they did Lincoln, and who hoped and plotted for Lincoln's election because it furnished them a pretext for rebellion.

The change of name from “Free soil” or “Liberty” to “Republican” in 1856 had very little significance. It was a matter of partisan policy and nothing more. “Liberty” and “Free soil,” as party cognomens, had a meaning, and were supposed to antagonize certain prejudices. “Republican,” at that juncture, meant nothing whatever. Besides, it was sonorous; it was euphonious; it was palatable to weak political stomachs. The ready acceptance of the new name by the Abolitionists goes very far to contradict Mr. Roosevelt's accusation against them of being regardless of the claims of political expediency.

The writer has shown, as he believes, that without the preparatory work of the political Abolitionists there would have been no Republican party. He will now go a step further. He believes that without that preliminary service there would not only have been no Republican party, but no Civil War in the interest of free soil, no Emancipation Proclamation, no Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution. There might have been and probably would have been considerable discussion, ending in a protest, more or less “ringing,” when slavery was permitted to overstep the line marked out by the Missouri Compromise. There might even have been another settlement. But no such adjustment would