Many and diverse circumstances contributed to the growth of sectionalism in Illinois.  The disruptive forces, however, may be easily overestimated.  The unifying forces in Illinois society were just as varied, and in the long run more potent.  As in the nation at large so in Illinois, religious, educational, and social organizations did much to resist the strain of countervailing forces.  But no organization proved in the end so enduring and effective as the political party.  Illinois had by 1840 two well-developed party organizations, which enveloped the people of the State, as on a large scale they embraced the nation.  These parties came to have an enduring, institutional character.  Men were born Democrats and Whigs.  Southern and Northern Whigs, Northern and Southern Democrats there were, of course; but the necessity of harmony for effective action tended to subordinate individual and group interests to the larger good of the whole.  Parties continued to be organized on national lines, after the churches had been rent in twain by sectional forces.  Of the two party organizations in Illinois, the Democratic party was numerically the larger, and in point of discipline, the more efficient.  It was older; it had been the first to adopt the system of State and district nominating conventions; it had the advantage of prestige and of the possession of office.  The Democratic party could “point with pride” to an unbroken series of victories in State and presidential elections.  By successful gerrymanders it had secured the lion’s share of congressional districts.  Above all it had intelligent leadership.  The retirement of Senator Breese left Stephen A. Douglas the undisputed leader of the party.

The dual party system in Illinois, as well as in the nation, was seriously threatened by the appearance of a third political organization with hostility to slavery as its cohesive force.  The Liberty party polled its first vote in Illinois in the campaign of 1840, when its candidate for the presidency received 160 votes.[314] Four years later its total vote in Illinois was 3,469, a notable increase.[315] The distribution of these votes, however, is more noteworthy than their number, for in no county did the vote amount to more than thirty per cent of the total poll of all parties.  The heaviest Liberty vote was in the northern counties.  The votes cast in the central and southern parts of the State were indicative, for the most part, of a Quaker or New England element in the population.[316] As yet the older parties had no reason to fear for their prestige; but in 1848 the Liberty party gave place to the Free-Soil party, which developed unexpected strength in the presidential vote.  It rallied anti-slavery elements by its cry of “Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men!” and for the first time broke the serried ranks of the older parties.  Van Buren, the candidate of the Free-Soilers, received a vote of 15,774, concentrated in the northeastern counties, but reaching formidable