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were denouncing him on every side, some going to the length of threatening assassination. The clamour for his removal extended over the entire South. Finally, when Geary had come to the conclusion that he was not being supported by the administration, he resigned in disgust.

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1856

The presidential campaign which opened while the bloody struggle in Kansas was at its height was a four-cornered contest. The first party to place a presidential ticket in the field was the American, or "Know-Nothing," the national convention of which assembled at Philadelphia, February 22nd, 1856. Ex-President Fillmore was named for president and Andrew J. Donelson of Tennessee, an adopted son of Andrew Jackson, for vice-president. A platform already prepared by the national council of the organisation was presented to the convention. In this an attempt was made to divert attention from the slavery question, and by the simple process of ignoring it confine the issues to the organisation's favourite theme of the exclusion of foreign and un-American influences. A minority of Northern delegates, after attempting to secure a positive declaration on slavery refused to take part in the nominations and withdrew.

On the same day met the first national convention of the new republican party. Delegates from twenty-three states, pursuant to a call of several state organisations, assembled at Pittsburgh, and after adopting a ringing address written by Henry J. Raymond, declaring for a free Kansas, and the exclusion of slavery from all the territories, issued a call for a nominating convention to meet at Philadelphia, on June 17th following.

The democratic convention met at Cincinnati on June 2nd. Availability, rather than personal preferences, decided the nominations. Southern delegates largely favoured the renomination of Pierce, or the selection of Douglas, but the assault on Sumner and the attack on Lawrence had aroused the distrust of many Northern democrats, and there was an evident disinclination to go before the country with either of the two men who were generally held to be directly responsible for these outrages. A strong Northern sentiment favoured the nomination of Buchanan who had been out of the country as minister to England and was supposed to be uncommitted to any particular course in Kansas. The additional advantage of his hailing from a doubtful state which it was of the highest importance to carry, cast the balance in his favour and, after the Douglas men had declared for him, he was nominated on the seventeenth ballot. John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, as the representative of the slave-power, was named for vice-president. The platform adopted contained a strong declaration of the party's devotion to and acceptance of the principles contained in the compromise of 1850 and the KansasNebraska Act. Finally, after insisting that there were "questions connected with the foreign policy of this country which are inferior to no domestic questions whatever," a hope was expressed that the influence of the United States might be made paramount in the gulf of Mexico, and the declaration made that this country ought to control the routes of inter-oceanic travel across Central America.

The republican convention came together at Philadelphia on June 17th. Delegates were present from all the Northern states and from Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky. In spite of an unusual unanimity in political beliefs the effort to secure a fit presidential candidate proved a far from easy task. William H. Seward, who was probably the best representative of the

[1856 A.D.]

principles for which the party stood was not as yet in thorough accord with the party organisation and hesitated to lead what he considered, as at best, a very forlorn hope. Salmon P. Chase, who next to Seward would have been the most acceptable candidate, was passed over on account of his Free-soil record, which it was feared would repel old whig voters. Before the convention met a strong movement had been started in favour of the nomination of John C. Frémont, a son-in-law of Senator Benton of Missouri, who had won distinction as an explorer and, after playing an active part in the conquest of California, had represented that state for a few months in the United States senate. The fact that he had already been nominated by the seceding KnowNothings was urged in his behalf. With Seward and Chase practically eliminated, his nomination was now easily accomplished. William L. Dayton of New Jersey was named for vice-president. In a brief but emphatic platform the party declared that it denied "the authority of congress, of a territorial legislature, of any individual or association of individuals to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States, while the present constitution shall be maintained.' The administration policy in Kansas was denounced and the demand made that the territory be immediately admitted as a free state. The Ostend Manifesto embodying "the highwayman's plea that might makes right," was characterised as a shame and dishonour to American diplomacy. A transcontinental railroad and river and harbour improvements were urged.

The last convention to meet was that of the remnants of the old whig party, which assembled at Baltimore, September 17th, and endorsed the nominations of Fillmore and Donelson.a The canvas which followed was an extraordinary one. It was sluggish enough in the South, where the only candidates were Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Fillmore; for Mr. Buchanan had the support of the entire slaveholding interest, and of all who were concerned for the maintenance of the political power of the slavery system. But in the North the republicans conducted a canvass rivalling that of 1840 in enthusiasm and having behind it what the "hard cider" campaign lacked — a definite moral purpose and a clearly understood policy. Great political clubs were organised, which marched from place to place visiting each other, uniformed and bearing torches. Immense public meetings were held, and the Northern heart was fired as it had never been before. Nevertheless the republican canvass was destined to end in defeat, although the earlier elections of the autumn indicated a republican victory. In Vermont more than threefourths of the votes were republican; and Maine, which had been carried in 1855 by a fusion party of democrats and "straight" whigs, was now carried by the republicans by almost eighteen thousand majority. But the October elections were unfavourable; for, while Ohio gave a republican majority, Indiana was lost, and Pennsylvania gave the democratic candidates on the state ticket a majority over the republican and whig vote combined. "The Quakers did not come out," it was said, but all who could read the signs of the time knew that the election was lost for the republicans.h

Buchanan and Breckinridge received 174 electoral votes, as against 114 for Frémont and 8 (Delaware) for Fillmore. But although defeated the surprising strength shown by the republicans with an acknowledgedly weak candidate was startling, and boded ill for continued democratic success, when once the movement was full grown. Frémont's popular vote was 1,341,264, while Buchanan's was only 1,838,169 and Fillmore's 874,534. But from a sectional point of view the result was most significant, for the republicans carried every Northern state but New Jersey, Pennsylvania,

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Indiana, and Illinois, and their vote in these states was large enough to cause them to be considered doubtful in any future contest. The campaign marked the final disappearance of the whig and "Know-Nothing" parties. Henceforth the real struggle was to be between the democratic and republican parties, which grew every day less national and more sectionalised in character.a

THE DRED-SCOTT DECISION (1857 A.D.)1

A brief struggle brought the business of the country out of the financial difficulties which prevailed for some months in 1857; but the strain of politics was not so soon removed, and a decision of the supreme court now hurried the country forward towards the infinitely greater crisis of civil war. Dred Scott was the negro slave of an army surgeon. His master had taken him, in the regular course of military service, from Missouri, his home, first into the state of Illinois, and then, in May, 1836, to Fort Snelling, on the west side of the Mississippi, in what is now Minnesota; after which, in 1838, he had returned with him to Missouri. Slavery was prohibited by state law in Illinois, and by the Missouri Compromise Act of 1820 in the territory west of the Mississippi; and after returning to Missouri the negro endeavoured to obtain his liberty by an appeal to the courts, on the ground that his residence in a free state had operated to destroy his master's rights over him. In course of appeal the case reached the supreme court of the United States. The chief, if not the only, question at issue was a question of jurisdiction. Was Dred Scott a citizen within the meaning of the constitution; had he had any rightful standing in the lower courts? To this question the court returned a decided negative. The temporary residence of the negro's master in Illinois and Minnesota, in the course of his official duty and without any intention to change his domicile, could not affect the status of the slave, at any rate, after his return to Missouri. He was not a citizen of Missouri in the constitutional sense, and could have therefore no standing in the federal courts. But, this question decided, the majority of the judges did not think it obiter dicens to go further, and argue as to the merits of the case regarding the status of slaves and the authority of congress over slavery in the territories. They were of the opinion that, notwithstanding the fact that the constitution spoke of slaves as "persons held to service and labour," men of the African race, in view of the fact of their bondage from the first in this country, were not regarded as persons, but only as property, by the constitution of the United States; that, as property, they were protected from hostile legislation on the part of congress by the express guarantees of the constitution itself; and that congress could no more legislate this form of property out of the territories than it could exclude property of any other kind, but must guarantee to every citizen the right to carry this, as he might carry all other forms of property, where he would within the territory subject to congress. The legislation, therefore, known as the Missouri Compromise was, in their judgment, unconstitutional and void.

The opinion of the court sustained the whole Southern claim. Not even the exercise of squatter sovereignty could have the countenance of law; congress must protect every citizen of the country in carrying with him into the territories property of whatever kind, until such time as the territory in which he settled should become a state, and pass beyond the direct jurisdic[Reprinted by permission of Longmans, Green, & Company. Copyright, 1893, by Longmans, Green, & Company.]

H. W. — VOL. XXIII. 2D

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tion of the federal government. Those who were seeking to prevent the extension of slavery into the territories were thus stigmatised as seeking an illegal object and acting in despite of the constitution.b

From the opinion of the majority justices Curtis and McLean dissented, the former in an opinion of great power declaring that he did not consider it "to be within the scope of the judicial power of the majority of the court to pass upon any question respecting the plaintiff's citizenship in Missouri, save that raised by the plea to the jurisdiction."

The immediate effect of the extraordinary decision was political rather than judicial. The South, seeing in it an endorsement, by the highest judicial tribunal in the land, of the theories long before advanced by Calhoun that it was the duty of congress to protect slavery in the territories, assumed a bolder and more truculent attitude than ever. The North, stunned at first by the blow, gradually came to realise that it really helped to clarify and simplify the great issue before the people. "By this presentation of the iniquity (of slavery) naked and in its most repulsive form, Taney [chief justice] did no small harm to the party which he intended to aid," writes Goldwin Smith, who further characterises the judgment as "a gratuitous aggression and an insult to humanity." More radical opinion declared that by this decision the supreme court had abdicated its functions and sullied its ermine by descending into the political arena. Lincoln voiced republican opinion when he declared: "We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this. We offer no resistance to it." Douglas found satisfaction in the fact that the Missouri Compromise, which his Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed, was now held to be unconstitutional, and he and his Northern democratic supporters generally accepted the judgment with a satisfaction that blinded itself to the fact that it also rendered their favourite theory of "squatter sovereignty" a dead letter.

THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION

The character of the advisers with whom President Buchanan surrounded himself was rightly taken at the North to indicate that the new administration would be dominated by and run in the interests of the pro-slavery party. General Cass, who accepted the state portfolio, was understood to be but a figurehead, as Buchanan would direct his own foreign policy. As was expected Howell Cobb, appointed secretary of the treasury, became the master-spirit of the administration.

Governor Geary had The president at once Walker of Mississippi,

The Kansas question was still a pressing one. resigned on the very day of Buchanan's inauguration. appointed as governor his life-long friend, Robert J. who had been secretary of the treasury in Polk's cabinet. Walker was himself a slave-holder and his appointment was hailed with delight by the South. With the president's promise to uphold him in dealing justly with both parties he began his administration full of hope. Before he had been in the territory a month he realised that three-fourths of the population were of the freestate party and his high sense of honour made him at once determine to refuse to be an instrument in subverting or nullifying the popular will. The freestate party refused to take part in the election of delegates to a constitutional convention held on June 15th, 1857, and as a result only pro-slavery delegates were chosen. This convention, assembling at Lecompton in September, made short work of framing the notorious instrument known as the Lecompton Constitution, with provisions for the establishment and safeguarding of slavery.

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Governor Walker had promised, relying on the word of Buchanan, that any constitution framed should be submitted to a vote of the people, and therefore declared himself against a movement presently set under way by the ultra-Southern leaders to admit Kansas at once under the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution. His subsequent action in refusing to sanction flagrant frauds in the October elections gave the free-state party for the first time control of the legislature, and aroused the fury of the pro-slavery men who now began to exert at Washington the same influence that had already undermined the authority of governors Reeder and Geary and made of them earnest free-state advocates.

In order to make a pretence of fair play the Lecompton convention now reassembled and made the preposterous proposal to submit to the people not the constitution they had framed but merely the question of its adoption "with slavery" or "without slavery." This was done. Again the freestate voters refused to go to the polls, and the constitution was adopted "with slavery" by a large majority. Thereupon the territorial legislature with its free-state majority, submitted the entire constitution to the people who rejected it by a large majority, the pro-slavery men this time refraining from voting.

Finally, on February 2nd, 1858, President Buchanan, who had by this time fallen under the spell of the pro-slavery leaders as completely as Pierce had done, sent the Lecompton Constitution to congress with a special message urging that Kansas be admitted under it. The president's action gave an opportunity to Stephen A. Douglas which he, greatly to the credit of his reputation as a consistent statesman rather than a truckling politician, accepted boldly. Four years before, in the hope of winning Southern support to help him to the presidency, he had sacrificed his reputation for sincerity and independence. It had all gone for naught. Now he stood out boldly, and true to his principles of popular sovereignty, refused to consent to force any sort of a constitution upon the people of Kansas. The stand of Douglas made it forever impossible for him to secure a nomination at Southern hands, but it won for him again the undisputed position of leader of the Northern democracy. The Lecompton Constitution, though approved by the senate in spite of Douglas, was defeated in the house through the combination of his followers, now known as the "anti-Lecompton" democrats, with the republicans. Attempts at compromise failed and after the Lecompton Constitution, in accordance with the terms of the English bill, had again been rejected by the voters of Kansas at the polls (August 2nd, 1858), the South at length reluctantly abandoned the attempt to make Kansas a slave state.a

The elections of 1858 showed a formidable gain in strength by the republicans, and bore an ominous warning for the democrats. Everywhere the republicans gained ground; even Pennsylvania, the president's own state, went against the administration by a heavy vote. The number of republicans in the senate was increased from twenty to twenty-five, from ninety-two to a hundred and nine in the house; and in the latter chamber they were to be able to play the leading part, since there were still twenty-two "Know-Nothings" in the house, and thirteen "anti-Lecompton" democrats, the followers

[Reprinted by permission of Longmans, Green, & Company. Copyright, 1893, by Longmans, Green, & Company.]