The platform which the convention adopted had a sound of increasing boldness upon the slavery question, but went no further than to deny the right of Congress to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory, and to declare the duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories "those twin relics of barbarism-polygamy and slavery." This part of the platform was simply the Wilmot Proviso in another form, and gave no hint of an ultimate interference with slavery in the States wherein it already existed, protected by the Constitution. Other planks of the platform had almost a Whig semblance, for they favored internal improvements in the shape of good rivers and harbors and the Pacific Railroad. It demanded the immediate admission of Kansas, and its claim of freedom of conscience and equal rights for all was aimed at the current suppression of antiNebraska oratory in most of the States south of Mason's and Dixon's line. The Administration was denounced, but the tariff and other old party issues were avoided.

This work having been performed, the convention, after one preliminary ballot, selected John C. Frémont, of California, as its candidate for President. There were many reasons why the brilliant army officer, whose name was associated with the acquisition of California and the exploration of the Rocky Mountain country, should be chosen to carry the standard of the new movement. He was well known to possess abundant abilities, although without experience as a legislator or statesman. It was dryly remarked, also, by Democratic journalists, that in

asmuch as the campaign was to end in certain defeat, the Republicans had selected a man of tried courage to lead their forlorn hope. It came very near to being a victory, nevertheless.

The next business in order was the selection of a candidate for Vice-President, and here a discovery was made. On the first ballot fifteen names were presented, of men who had become more or less prominent in the anti-Nebraska contest. At the head of the list stood William L. Dayton, of New Jersey, with two hundred and fifty-nine votes, and next to him was Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, with one hundred and ten. Speaker Banks was next, with forty-six, and the rest were scattering. It was manifestly imprudent to indulge in any contest, and the nomination of Mr. Dayton was at once declared, but even Mr. Lincoln was astonished at the vote

given to himself. He was attending court in Urbana, Ill., when the telegraph, brought the report of the first vote for Vice-President.

"Why, that must be our Lincoln-hundred and ten votes for him," remarked somebody near him. "No, that can't be," he responded. It must be the great Lincoln from Massachusetts."

There was, indeed, a prominent citizen of the Bay State bearing the same name, but the Illinois leader had won already a wider fame than either he or his friends as yet imagined.

CHAPTER XVII.

The Canvass of 1856-Revolt of Douglas-Lincoln's New Career-Buchanan's Position-The Lecompton Constitution—The Illinois Senatorial Canvass— Lincoln's Bloomington Speech-Debates with Douglas-The Freeport Questions-Defeat that was Victory.

THE Democratic Party was as yet nominally united, although large factions of its membership held widely varying views as to the interpretation of their political creed. Its National Convention nominated James Buchanan for President and John C. Breckinridge for Vice-President, upon a platform which accepted the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and its consequences. The remnants of the old Whig Party nominated Millard Fillmore, of New York, and Andrew Jackson Donelson, of Tennessee, thereby enabling a large number of timid voters to refrain, for a time, from becoming either Democrats or Republicans. A precisely similar cave of escape was opened to them four years later. In the campaign of 1856 the Fillmore men, or some of them, claimed to have saved the Union by preventing Frémont from carrying the States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, and Illinois. He received one hundred and fourteen votes from the other free

States, against one hundred and seventy-four in all, given to Mr. Buchanan. If only half of the sixty-eight votes of the four States rescued by the Whig ticket had been changed to Frémont, the Republican Party would have won the day. Mr. Fillmore received eight hundred and seventyfour thousand five hundred and thirty-four votes at the polls, but carried only the one State of Maryland.

The long months of the Presidential campaign were a period of great excitement for the country. All business interests suffered. Mr. Lincoln himself, at the head of the Illinois Republican electoral ticket, was reported to have made more than fifty speeches, almost giving up his private affairs to throw all his energies into the great battle. He had something worth fighting for now, a cause which aroused all the hitherto only half-awakened forces which had lain dormant within him. He very nearly carried his party to victory in his own State, only the Whig stumbling-block preventing success. The Republican candidate for governor, an old Whig, was elected by a plurality of four thousand seven hundred and twenty-nine votes, while a sufficient number who gave him their ballots also voted for the Fillmore electors and permitted the Buchanan ticket to succeed by a plurality of over nine thousand. They gave, however, a fair indication of what their tendencies would be when a final decision should be forced upon them. They were not afraid to have a Republican governor, but as yet they were inclined to shiver at the possibili

ties involved in the election of a Republican President.

The most notable effect of the campaign of 1856, not excepting by any means the election of Mr. Buchanan, was the change which took place in the minds and hearts and utterances of men. The proslavery extremists of the South openly declared the election of an anti-slavery President a sufficient ground for disunion and war, and their declarations no longer met with strenuous opposition at home, as formerly. The secessionists were no longer a mere knot of violent talkers, they had become leaders of thought, nearly ready to step out as leaders of action. At the North, in like manner, anti-slavery sentiment had made a tremendous advance, and it was almost honorable to have been an abolitionist from the beginning. Respectable men felt very respectable as members of a party which had swept eleven States at the last election, and they were getting ready to remain in it in case its next platform should be made of more radical timbers. At the same time, it was to be perceived by clear-headed politicians, such as Senator Douglas, for instance, that the great Buchanan vote had been rallied for that election only and that it could not again be brought to the polls in support of the idea of slavery extension. He himself did not desire the extension of slavery, and he did not approve of the condition of things in Kansas, largely consequent upon his own avowed efforts on behalf of the public peace. The kind of peace obtained was astonishing, and he prepared to offer his wing of the Democratic Party