Free Soilers made slavery the campaign’s central issue. Both major parties had to abandon their strategy of ignoring the question. Instead, they tried to win support in each section by obfuscating it. Democrats circulated different campaign biographies of Cass in North and South. In the North they emphasized popular sovereignty as the best way to keep slavery out of the territories. In the South Democrats cited Cass’s pledge to veto the Wilmot Proviso and pointed with pride to the party’s success (over Whig opposition) in acquiring territory into which slavery might expand.
