Fayetteville (NC) Observer, “Revival of the Whig Party,” November 8, 1858

REVIVAL OF THE WHIG PARTY. – The address of 230 Whigs of Massachusetts, to their fellow Whigs of that State, will be hailed with joy by many besides the thousands who never could reconcile themselves to an affiliation with any other party, either American, Democratic or Republican. It is a move in the right direction, and made by the right men, for among the signers are the names of Tudor, Appleton, Curtis, Perkins, Lunt, Lincoln, Gray, Sumner, Saltonstall, Hilliard, and others of the eminent citizens of that old commonwealth. And they base their appeal for action upon the duty of Whigs to sustain the Judiciary, and “therefore to throw their votes in the way most likely to defeat the election of the candidates of the Republican party.” That has the ring of the true metal. That is National Whiggery, such as we were familiar with in the days of Clay and Webster, when Massachusetts and Kentucky and North Carolina could stand side by side, undivided by any miserable sectional issue – a “union of Whigs for the sake of the Union.” We hail the step with joy, and hope that it will be responded to in every State. It may not lead to the restoration of the Whigs to power, either in the Union or in the State, though even that is possible in the present divided condition of the Democratic party. But whether it does or does not, is a matter of far less moment than the conservative influence which the Whig party can always exert when it chooses to move in solid phalanx in favor of a National policy.