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A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 86/340

A History of Columbia County, Florida

Winfield Scott in the presidential election of 1852 marked an end
of the party’s strength at the national level. In Florida, some Whigs
became Democrats. In that way much of the Whig philosophy was
brought into the state’s Democratic party. Those who were unable
to make so radical a break affiliated themselves with the Ameri­
can party or the Constitutional Union party. The American or
Know-Nothing party was strongly anti-foreigner and anti-Catholic.
Starting in the North as a movement favoring the protection of
native Americans and the Protestant faith against immigration and
Catholicism, it made its way into the South and found acceptance
there as well. Many of the Germans, Irish and other immigrants
coming into the United States during this time period were opposed
to slavery, and slave holders feared they would swell the ranks of the
abolitionists.2.
In 1856 David S. Walker ran for governor of Florida on the
American party ticket, while James M. Baker was nominated for
representative in Congress. In the same year the Democrats met in
convention at Madison and nominated the pro-secession Alachua
planter Madison Starke Perry for governor. Perry defeated Walker
in the November election. At the national level, the Republican
party, regarded in the South as an abolitionist party, nominated
John C. Fremont to run against the Democrat James Buchanan.
Buchanan was elected, but the election was close, causing alarm in
the South that the next Presidential contest might place a
Republican in the White House.
Sectional issues continued to excite the nation during the late
1850’s. Early in 1857 the Supreme Court elicited bitter de­
nunciations from the abolitionists when it ruled that the ex-slave
Dred Scott had not gained his freedom when he was taken into a
territory which prohibited slavery. In 1858 Governor Perry called
upon the legislature to reorganize the state’s militia in anticipation
of a future conflict. In 1859 John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry,
2Ibid., pp. 2-3.

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