That was an event of very serious significance.

It would bring the conflict of sections still nearer by sundering a tie which had for so long a period bound together vast numbers from the North and the South in common sympathy and fraternal co-operation.

Even those who were most opposed to the Democratic party beheld its peril with a certain feeling of regret not unmixed with apprehension.

The Whig party had been destroyed; and its Northern and Southern members, who, but a few years before, had worked harmoniously for Harrison, for Clay, for Taylor, were now enrolled in rival and hostile organizations.
A similar dissolution of the Democratic party would sweep away the only common basis of political action still existing for men of the free States and men of the slave States.

The separation of the Methodist church into Northern and Southern organizations, a few years before, had been regarded by Mr.Webster as a portent of evil for the Union.