There is some biographical background on Massachusetts politician Robert Rantoul, Jr. (1805-1852) (the village of Rantoul, Illinois, is named after him, as he was a founder of the Illinois Central Railroad) at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rantoul and in this nineteenth century biography from *Appleton's Cyclopedia*:
"...statesman, born in Beverly, Massachusetts, 13 August, 1805; died in Washington, D. C., 7 August, 1852, was graduated at Harvard in 1826, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1829, and began practice in Salem, but transferred his practice in 1830 to South Reading, Massachusetts In 1832 he removed to Gloucester. He was elected to the legislature in 1834, serving four years, and assuming at once a position as a leader of the Jacksonian Democracy, in which interest he established at Gloucester a weekly journal. In the legislature he formed a friendship with John G. Whittier, who wrote a poem in his memory. He sat upon the first commission to revise the laws of Massachusetts, and was an active member of the judiciary committee. He interested himself in the establishment of lyceums. In 1836-'8 he represented the state in the first board of directors of the Western railroad, and in 1837 became a member of the Massachusetts board of education. In 1839 he established himself in Boston, and in 1840 he appeared in defence of the Journeymen bootmakers' organization, indicted for a conspiracy to raise wages, and procured their discharge on the ground that a combination of individuals to effect, by means not unlawful, that which each might legally do, was not a criminal conspiracy. He defended in Rhode Island two persons indicted for complicity in the Dorr rebellion of 1842, Daniel Webster being the opposing counsel, he was appointed United States district attorney for Massachusetts in 1845, and held that office till 1849, when he resigned. He delivered in April, 1850, at Concord the address in commemoration of the outbreak of the Revolution. In 1850 he was the organizer and a corporator of the Illinois Central railroad. In 1851, when Daniel Webster gave up his seat in the United States senate, on being appointed secretary of state, Mr. Rantoul was appointed to fill the vacancy till the end of the session, serving only nine days. He was elected as an opponent of the extension of slavery by a coalition of Democrats and Free-soilers to the National house of representatives, and served from 1 December, 1851, till his death. In 1852 he was refused a seat in the National Democratic convention on the ground that he and his constituents were disfranchised by their attitude toward slavery. He was an advocate of various reforms, and delivered lectures and speeches on the subject of educational advancement, several of which were published, and while a member of the Massachusetts legislature prepared a report in favor of the abolition of the death-penalty that was long quoted by the opponents of capital punishment, He took a prominent part in the agitation against the fugitive-slave law. As counsel in 1851 for Thomas Simms, the first escaped slave delivered up by Massachusetts, he took the ground that slavery was a state institution, and that the general government had no power to return fugitives from justice, or runaway apprentices or slaves, but that such extradition was a matter for arrangement between the states. He lent his voice and pen to the movement against the use of stimulants, but protested against prohibitory legislation as an invasion of private rights. After leaving the legislature, where the variety of his learning, the power of his eloquence, and his ardent convictions against the protection of native industry and other enlargements of the sphere of government, and in favor of educational and moral reforms had attracted attention, he became a favorite lecturer and political speaker throughout New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. He edited a "Workingmen's Library," that was issued by the lyceums and two series of a "Common School Library" that was published under the sanction of the Massachusetts board of education. See his "Memoirs, Speeches, and Writings," edited by Luther Hamilton (Boston, 1854)..."
http://famousamericans.net/robertrantoul/
I became interested in this now-obscure Massachusetts politician from a reading of Jonathan H. Earle,
Jacksonian Antislavery and the Politics of Free Soil, 1824-1854 (University of North Carolina Press 2004). What fascinated me about Rantoul is the way he underwent a remarkably swift transformation from a typical northern Democratic "doughface" in the 1840's to a staunch foe of slavery in the early 1850's.
Rantoul had started his career as a staunch Jacksonian hard-money man. (That he remained a "radical" Democrat is shown by his defense of the trade unionists and the Dorrites and his opposition to capital punishment.) Many northerners of that description became increasingly hostile to the "Slave Power" during the 1840's after Van Buren had been denied nomination in 1844, after the Democrats annexed Texas but compromised on Oregon, and after the Mexican War opened new territory to slavery. But not Rantoul. Despite his friendship with John Greenleaf Whittier, and despite the fact that he had long defended the abolitionists' rights of petition and speech, Rantoul "during the 1840's eschewed the Van Buren wing of the party and became a key northern supporter of proslavery stalwarts like John C. Calhoun and President John Tyler." Earle, p. 186. He opposed the Wilmot Proviso, and supported Cass over Van Buren for the presidency in 1848, insisting that the real issue of the campaign was not slavery but the free-trade Walker Tariff!
"But the combination of the Fugitive Slave Act, which forced Northerners for the first time to deal directly with slavery on their own streets, and Massachusetts' unique three party system [Whigs, Democrats, Free Soilers] after 1849 precipitated a dramatic transformation. In 1850 the former doughface suddenly emerged as one of the North's leading antislavery Democrats. Once Rantoul accepted that slavery was an issue--that slaveholders were, indeed, a threat to northern workers and farmers on a par with New England's textile barons--it became for him the only issue, swallowing up all others in a matter of days or weeks. Rantoul excoriated the Fugitive Slave Act (and the compromise in general) as an attempt by aristocratic southerners to dictate policy to the rest of the country and to make northerners confront what he believed was, once, a strictly southern concern. 'Is one third of the white people of the United States to dictate to the other two-thirds,' he asked in a speech in Lynn in April 1851 'and call their submission 'peace'?'
"Soon after this speech criticizing the compromise, Rantoul unexpectedly became a defense attorney for Thomas Sims, an accused fugitive, in a trial that received significant national attention. Although Rantoul failed in his effort to stop federal authorities from returning Sims to slavery, his performance at the trial ingratiated him to Essex County's Free Soilers, and they nominated him as their candidate for Congress. With the backing of both Free Soilers and the country's regular Democrats, he won handily. Surprisingly, during the last months of his life--he died suddenly in August 1852--Rantoul became a proponent of rapid abolition, declaring that there would be no 'finality' for the slavery issue other than universal emancipation. But his reasoning continued to be that of a radical, hard-money, and states' rights Jacksonian. 'The man who thinks he is a democrat,' he told the local Democratic district convention a month before his death, 'and seeks to defeat that state of society which builds up great accumulation of property in a few hands...who dares to sacrifice liberty (whether in the person of his white brother or his colored brother, I care not) who is willing to sacrifice or endanger liberty because it will make a tenth of a cent's difference in the price of cotton goods, is no democrat.'...For Rantoul, southern slaveholders, previously his closest political allies, had with the compromise renounced the essential principle of the Democratic Party. They had used their power as slaveholders to stomp on the liberties of slaves and their power in Washington to stomp on the liberties of northerners." Earle, pp. 186-7.
http://books.google.com/books?id=P-bexvq4ElcC&pg=PA186
Suppose that instead of dying suddenly in 1852, Rantoul had lived to the age of seventy (dying in 1875)? Having been "refused a seat in the National Democratic convention on the ground that he and his constituents were disfranchised by their attitude toward slavery" (*Appleton's*) one might think that he would support the Free Soil (or "Free Democratic" as it now called itself) party's candidate, Hale. However, he still considered himself a Democrat, and his Democratic supporters, while denouncing the actions of the Democrats at the convention in rejecting Rantoul as a delegate, still affirmed their loyalty to Pierce:
"Resolved, That the democracy of the Second Congressional District of Massachusetts hail with the highest satisfaction the nominations of the late convention at Baltimore, and we pledge ourselves to give to Franklin Pierce and William R. King, the democratic nominees, our warmest, our heartiest, and our undivided support at the election in November next.
"Resolved, That the occasion which now calls us together is one of peculiar pleasure, inasmuch as the opportunity is thus afforded us to exchange congratulations with one of the most favored and honored sons of New England,--Robert Rantoul, Jr.,--the tried and faithful supporter of democratic principles, and the able congressional representative from this district.
"Resolved, That as democrats, educated in the true faith, we know no authority in our political creed beyond that which is conferred by the people themselves ; and in our political organization, we recognize but one course of conduct in reference to our candidates, to wit--the uniform support of all regular nominations.
"Resolved, That inasmuch as Robert Rantoul, Jr., of Beverly, was the delegate of the democratic party in the second district of Massachusetts, to the Baltimore Convention of 1852, nominated by the whole party, in due form, and through the regular constituted authority, and was duly elected to represent said party and said district--in that body--therefore--
"Resolved, That the action of said convention in rejecting the rightfully chosen delegate from the second district, (and also his substitute, Hon. George N. Dike, of Stoneham,) was a gross violation of one of the fundamental principles upon which our party is based. And, while we assert that this act of the convention is without parallel, defence, or precedent, we are compelled to denounce it as impolitic and ungenerous, and deserving of the severest censure of every democrat throughout the land.
"Resolved, That, as in times past we have supported no man for public office who has not been regularly nominated by recognized authority, and who has thus been presented properly for our suffrages,--so, as democrats, we will hereafter support no man in this district other than the nominee of the regularly organized democratic party thereof.
"Resolved, That our confidence in the integrity and thorough democracy of Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr. is firm and unimpaired. That we are proud to greet him on this occasion, and embrace this opportunity to express our hearty and unqualified approval and indorsement of his public career,-- and especially his course in the congress of the United States, during the present session. And, while we thank him for his zeal and devotedness to our cause, we cordially bear witness to the ability and ardor which has characterized his acts in furtherance of democratic truth and equal rights upon the floor of the house of representatives of the United States."
http://books.google.com/books?id=EqQ6AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA828
Rantoul himself argued that, like it or not--and he made clear his objections not only to his own exclusion as a delegate but to the pro-Compromise provisions in the Democratic platform--either Pierce or Scott would be elected:
"But the question comes, is any one else to be president, except one of the two leading candidates? Some of you, my friends, may dislike the fact, but it is none the less true. Two great parties have determined upon their course of conduct. They have brought forward their candidates, and one or the other must surely be elected. I do not act upon abstractions; and as a practical man I am bound to act practically, so far as results are concerned. There is but one alternative, between the two possibilities of which I am at liberty to choose. One or the other of two men is to be president of the United States. I mean, supposing they both live; I mean, supposing there be no extraordinary and unforeseen concurrence of circumstances. I mean, according to all human probability, one or the other of them will be the next president. And the question is for me, which ought I to aid to elevate to that position?"
http://books.google.com/books?id=EqQ6AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA842
This was pretty much the reasoning of New York Barnburners like Benjamin Franklin Butler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin_Butler_(lawyer) (not to be confused with the "Beast" of New Orleans) and Preston King
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_King_(politician) who reluctantly came out in favor of Pierce: since the two party's platforms are equally bad on slavery, and since Hale cannot win, let us vote for Pierce because at least the Democrats are better on economic issues than the Whigs.
Interestingly, at least one work suggests that if Rantoul had lived he might have been elected once more to the US Senate, despite the obvious problems the choice of Pierce (among other developments) posed for the Massachusetts Democratic-Free Soil coalition:
"The State election at that time followed the national by a week. The union between the two parties opposed to the Whigs was now in State affairs less practicable than before, as a national election was pending, and the Democrats of Massachusetts, by their national platform and candidates, although their individual convictions might be the contrary, were committed to a pro-slavery policy. Nevertheless, the Free Soilers still hoped by the aid of Democratic votes to choose a Legislature which should give them another voice in the Senate on the expiration of John Davis's term, and to elect three or four members of Congress. Besides the pro-slavery position of the national Democratic party, certain local difficulties--some blunders of the State administration, Governor Boutwell's appointment of Cushing as judge of the Supreme Court, and most of all the passage of the Maine Liquor law at the last session, a movement in which the Free Soilers took the lead--proved disastrous to the coalition. *Even these disadvantages might not have been fatal if Robert Rantoul, Jr., had lived, whose name as candidate for senator to be chosen by the next Legislature would have given vigor and inspiration to the Free Soilers and liberal Democrats.* [emphasis added--DT] As it was, the Legislature was lost by about ten majority, and with it the State offices and senator, although Horace Mann as candidate for governor received nine thousand more votes than were given to Hale for President..." *Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Volume Three*, pp. 317-18.
http://books.google.com/books?id=yZ52AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA317
After the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Rantoul will presumably become a Republican. (His one reason for sticking with the Democrats as late as 1852 is that he thought that the US was always going to be a two party country, and that the only alternative to the Democrats was the "aristocratic" Whig party. With the Whig party gone, with the new Republican party having many ex-Democrats, and with Kansas-Nebraska showing the futility of attempting to remake the Democrats into an anti-slavery party, it is hard to see any alternative for Rantoul but the Republicans, once the American Party as a national organization rejects anti-slavery.) Given the Republicans' desire to balance Lincoln with an anti-slavery ex-Democrat from the Northeast (in OTL Hannibal Hamlin of Maine), might Rantoul even be on the national Republican ticket in 1860?