CHAPTER X
POLITICAL HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS FROM
1848 TO 1869
In 1848, the Free Soil Party in Massachusetts nominated candidates
for State officers. It was made up of Whigs, Democrats and
members of the Liberty Party. It had made no distinct issue
with the Whig Party upon matters of State administration.
Governor Briggs, the Whig Governor, was a wise and honest
Chief Magistrate, highly respected by all the people. But
the Free Soil leaders wisely determined that if they were
to have a political party, they must have candidates for State
officers as well as National. It is impossible to organize
a political party with success whose members are acting together
in their support of one candidate and striving with all their
might against each other when another is concerned. My father
was urged to be the Free Soil candidate for Governor. Charles
Francis Adams and Edmund Jackson visited him at Concord to
press it upon him as a duty. Charles Allen wrote him an earnest
letter to the same effect. But he was an old friend of Governor
Briggs and disliked very much to become his antagonist.
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