THE BUCHANAN-FREMONT-FILLMORE CONTEST
1856
The Presidential battle of 1856, that gave Pennsylvania her only President in James Buchanan, is memorable chiefly because it dated the birth of the Republican party as a national organization, that was destined to conduct the greatest civil war of modern history, to abolish slavery, maintain its power uninterruptedly for a quarter of a century, and to write the most lustrous chapters in the annals of the Republic.
The Democrats were greatly demoralized by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and they suffered the aggressive defection of a number of Democratic leaders with large popular following, but the various shades of opposition to the Democracy were even more hopelessly divided. The Democrats had the advantage of being able to command a solid vote from the South on a square slavery issue, and they reasonably hoped that they could hold enough States in the North to give them success. Buchanan had been abroad as Minister during the troublesome times of the Pierce administration, and he returned just in good time to make the most out of the disturbed situation that confronted him. The renomination and re-election of Pierce were hopeless. Cass had been defeated by the people and suffered repeated defeats in national conventions. Buchanan thus had a strong lead for the Presidential nomination, and he was most fortunate in having the accomplished, devoted, and tireless Colonel Forney to manage his campaign, not only for the nomination, but to direct the national contest in the few Northern States which could be held to the Democratic flag.
The Southern leaders had absolute confidence in Buchanan, and they were entirely justified in their faith. He had been a Federal member of Congress in early days, and later entered the Democratic party with all the strict construction ideas of Federalism, which were then in harmony with the Democratic policy as applied to the slavery issue. He was the logical Democratic candidate for President in 1856; and President Pierce, an utterly impossible candidate, as it was known that he never could command the necessary two-thirds vote in the convention, was his only serious competitor when the balloting began.
JAMES BUCHANAN
The Democratic National Convention met in Cincinnati on the 2d of June, with full delegations from every State, and two contesting delegations from New York and Missouri. The quarrel between the factions in both States was intensely bitter. The opposing factions of New York were known as the “Hards,” who were a spawn of the old Hunkers, and the “Softs,” who took the place of the Barnburners. The Missouri delegations were known as the Bentonites and the Regulars, the Bentonites having lost the control of the party organization in the State. The convention solved the problem by admitting both delegations from each State, and giving each delegate only half a vote. John E. Ward, of Georgia, was made the permanent president, and the two-thirds rule was reaffirmed without a contest.
It was at this convention that Stephen A. Douglas first developed as an aggressive candidate for President, and as he had led the battle for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he was in harmony with the Pierce administration. As will be seen by the ballots, his strength was almost wholly given to Pierce until Pierce’s unavailability was clearly established, when the Pierce vote was mostly transferred to Douglas. The following table presents the 17 ballots in detail, resulting in the nomination of Buchanan:
| BALLOTS. | Buchanan. | Pierce. | Douglas. | Cass. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 135 | 122 | 33 | 5 | ||||
| 2 | 139 | 119 | ¹⁄₂ | 3 | ¹⁄₂ | 6 | ||
| 3 | 139 | ¹⁄₂ | 119 | 32 | 5 | ¹⁄₂ | ||
| 4 | 141 | ¹⁄₂ | 119 | 30 | 5 | ¹⁄₂ | ||
| 5 | 140 | 119 | ¹⁄₂ | 31 | 5 | ¹⁄₂ | ||
| 6 | 155 | 117 | ¹⁄₂ | 28 | 5 | ¹⁄₂ | ||
| 7 | 143 | ¹⁄₂ | 89 | 58 | 5 | ¹⁄₂ | ||
| 8 | 147 | ¹⁄₂ | 87 | 56 | 5 | ¹⁄₂ | ||
| 9 | 146 | 87 | 56 | 7 | ||||
| 10 | 150 | ¹⁄₂ | 80 | ¹⁄₂ | 59 | ¹⁄₂ | 5 | ¹⁄₂ |
| 11 | 147 | ¹⁄₂ | 80 | 63 | 5 | ¹⁄₂ | ||
| 12 | 148 | 79 | 63 | ¹⁄₂ | 5 | ¹⁄₂ | ||
| 13 | 150 | 77 | ¹⁄₂ | 63 | 5 | ¹⁄₂ | ||
| 14 | 152 | ¹⁄₂ | 75 | 63 | 5 | ¹⁄₂ | ||
| 15 | 168 | ¹⁄₂ | 3 | ¹⁄₂ | 118 | ¹⁄₂ | 4 | ¹⁄₂ |
| 16 | 168 | — | 121 | 6 | ||||
| 17 | 296 | — | — | — | ||||
As Buchanan was from the North, the Vice-Presidency was conceded to the South, and 10 candidates were placed in nomination. The 1st ballot resulted as follows:
| J. A. Quitman, Miss. | 59 |
| Linn Boyd, Ky. | 33 |
| A. V. Brown, Tenn. | 29 |
| J. A. Bayard, Del. | 31 |
| T. J. Rusk, Texas | 2 |
| J. C. Breckenridge, Ky. | 55 |
| B. Fitzpatrick, Ala. | 11 |
| H. V. Johnson, Ga. | 31 |
| Trusten Polk, Mo. | 5 |
| J. C. Dobbin, N. C. | 13 |
When the 2d ballot was called, a number of the candidates had their names withdrawn, and Mr. Breckenridge was given a unanimous nomination. He was the idol of the young Democracy of the South, having won his spurs by two of the most remarkable Congressional campaigns in the history of Kentucky, in which he had defeated Governor Letcher and Leslie Combs, two of the ablest of the old Clay leaders in the Ashland district. His success was due entirely to his own personal popularity. He was not only one of the ablest of all the Breckenridges, but he was a most accomplished, genial, and delightful companion, and his nomination greatly strengthened the Democratic ticket in all sections of the country.
The platform was finally adopted without a contest. It recited first the preamble adopted in 1844, followed by ten resolutions from other previous platforms, embracing the first five of 1840, and others embracing the Democratic views on the proceeds of the public land; in opposition to a national bank; in favor of the subtreasury system; in support of the veto power, and opposing any new limitations upon naturalization. To these the following new resolutions were added:
And whereas, Since the foregoing declaration was uniformly adopted by our predecessors in national convention, an adverse political and religious test has been secretly organized by a party claiming to be exclusively American, and it is proper that the American Democracy should clearly define its relations thereto, and declare its determined opposition to all secret political societies, by whatever name they may be called—
Resolved, That the foundation of this Union of States having been laid in, and its prosperity, expansion, and pre-eminent example of free government built upon entire freedom in matters of religious concernment, and no respect of persons in regard to rank or place or birth, no party can be justly deemed national, constitutional, or in accordance with American principles which bases its exclusive organization upon religious opinions and accidental birthplace. And hence a political crusade in the nineteenth century, and in the United States of America, against Catholics and foreign-born, is neither justified by the past history nor future prospects of the country, nor in unison with the spirit of toleration and enlightened freedom which peculiarly distinguishes the American system of popular government.
Resolved, That we reiterate with renewed energy of purpose the well-considered declarations of former conventions upon the sectional issue of domestic slavery and concerning the reserved rights of the States—
1. That Congress has no power under the Constitution to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that all such States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs not prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts of the Abolitionists or others made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of our political institutions.
2. That the foregoing covers, and was intended to embrace, the whole subject of slavery agitation in Congress, and therefore the Democratic party of the Union, standing on this national platform, will abide by and adhere to a faithful execution of the acts known as the “Compromise” Measures, settled by the Congress of 1850, the act for reclaiming fugitives from service or labor included; which act, being designed to carry out an express provision of the Constitution, cannot, with fidelity thereto, be repealed, or so changed as to destroy or impair its efficiency.
3. That the Democratic party will resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color the attempt may be made.
4. The Democratic party will faithfully abide by and uphold the principle laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1797 and 1798, and in the report of Mr. Madison to the Virginia Legislature in 1799; that it adopts these principles as constituting one of the main foundations of its political creed, and is resolved to carry them out in their obvious meaning and import.
And that we may more distinctly meet the issue on which a sectional party, subsisting exclusively on slavery agitation, now relies to test the fidelity of the people, North and South, to the Constitution and the Union—
1. Resolved, That, claiming fellowship with and desiring the co-operation of all who regard the preservation of the Union under the Constitution as the paramount issue, and repudiating all sectional issues and platforms concerning domestic slavery which seek to embroil the States and incite to treason and armed resistance to law in the Territories, and whose avowed purpose, if consummated, must end in civil war and disunion, the American Democracy recognize and adopt the principles contained in the organic laws establishing the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the slavery question, upon which the great national idea of the people of this whole country can repose in its determined conservation of the Union, and non-interference of Congress with slavery in the Territories or in the District of Columbia.
2. That this was the basis of the compromise of 1850, confirmed by both the Democratic and Whig parties in national conventions, ratified by the people in the election of 1852, and rightly applied to the organization of the Territories in 1854.
3. That by the uniform application of the Democratic principle to the organization of Territories, and the admission of new States with or without domestic slavery, as they may elect, the equal rights of all the States will be preserved intact, the original compacts of the Constitution maintained inviolate, and the perpetuity and expansion of the Union insured to its utmost capacity of embracing, in peace and harmony, every future American State that may be constituted or annexed with a republican form of government.
Resolved, That we recognize the right of the people of all the Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly expressed will of the majority of the actual residents, and whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a constitution, with or without domestic slavery, and be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with the other States.
Resolved, Finally, that in view of the condition of popular institutions in the Old World (and the dangerous tendencies of sectional agitation, combined with the attempt to enforce civil and religious disabilities against the rights of acquiring and enjoying citizenship in our own land), a high and sacred duty is devolved, with increased responsibility, upon the Democratic party of this country, as the party of the Union, to uphold and maintain the rights of every State, and thereby the Union of the States; and to sustain and advance among us constitutional liberty, by continuing to resist all monopolies and exclusive legislation for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many; and by a vigilant and constant adherence to those principles and compromises of the Constitution which are broad enough and strong enough to embrace and uphold the Union as it was, the Union as it is, and the Union as it shall be, in the full expansion of the energies and capacity of this great and progressive people.
1. Resolved, That there are questions connected with the foreign policy of this country which are inferior to no domestic question whatever. The time has come for the people of the United States to declare themselves in favor of free seas, and progressive free trade throughout the world, and by solemn manifestations to place their moral influence at the side of their successful example.
2. Resolved, That our geographical and political position with reference to the other States of this continent, no less than the interest of our commerce and the development of our growing power, requires that we should hold sacred the principles involved in the Monroe Doctrine. Their bearing and import admit of no misconstruction, and should be applied with unbending rigidity.
3. Resolved, That the great highway, which nature as well as the assent of States most immediately interested in its maintenance has marked out for free communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, constitutes one of the most important achievements realized by the spirit of modern times, in the unconquerable energy of our people; and that result would be secured by a timely and efficient exertion of the control which we have the right to claim over it; and no power on earth should be suffered to impede or clog its progress by any interference with relations that it may suit our policy to establish between our Government and the governments of the States within whose dominions it lies. We can, under no circumstances, surrender our preponderance in the adjustment of all questions arising out of it.
4. Resolved, That, in view of so commanding an interest, the people of the United States cannot but sympathize with the efforts which are being made by the people of Central America to regenerate that portion of the continent which covers the passage across the inter-oceanic isthmus.
5. Resolved, That the Democratic party will expect of the next administration that every proper effort be made to insure our ascendancy in the Gulf of Mexico, and to maintain permanent protection to the great outlets through which are emptied into its waters the products raised out of the soil and the commodities created by the industry of the people of our Western valleys and of the Union at large.
Resolved, That the administration of Franklin Pierce has been true to Democratic principles, and therefore true to the great interests of the country. In the face of violent opposition he has maintained the laws at home, and vindicated the rights of American citizens abroad; and therefore we proclaim our unqualified admiration of his measures and policy.
When Buchanan was nominated for President everything indicated his election by a very large majority and without a serious struggle. It was evident to all that the antislavery sentiment was making rapid strides in the North. The Democrats felt certain of a solid vote in the South, and they did not regard it as possible for the Republican party to unite the American and conservative Whig elements to sufficient extent to enable it to make a hopeful contest in Pennsylvania, New York, and the Western Democratic States; but very soon after the meeting of the first Republican National Convention the new party grew with such rapidity that the Democratic leaders finally looked the fact in the face that they had a very desperate and doubtful contest before them.
The Republican party first appeared in the political arena in 1854. It had then a small organization in New York State, and cast a sufficient number of votes to elect Clark, the Whig candidate, for Governor, over Seymour, the Democratic candidate, who lost the Governorship by 309 majority. I was at the cradle of the Republican party; was a delegate to its first State convention, held in Pittsburg, Penn., in 1855. It was a mass convention, composed of a loose aggregation of political free-thinkers, but a number of very able men, including Giddings and Bingham, of Ohio, and Allison, of Pennsylvania, who presided, delivered addresses. There was but one State office to fill in Pennsylvania, that of Canal Commissioner. The convention was made up very largely of the aggressive Abolition element of the State, small in number, but bold and assertive in action, as was shown by the spontaneous nomination of Passmore Williamson, who was then in prison for contempt of court in a fugitive slave case. The nomination was resented by all the conservative Whigs and by the Americans, and without the votes of those parties the Republican organization could not carry a township in the State. Williamson was finally persuaded to retire, and the Whig, American, and Republican committees united on Thomas Nicholson, of Beaver, but the elements were too discordant, and the State was lost by some 12,000.
I was a delegate to the first Republican National Convention, that met in Philadelphia on the 17th of June, 1856. It was also a mass convention, as the party had no organization, and States sent large or small delegations as was most convenient. I went to the convention, hoping to aid in the nomination of Judge McLean for President, who was sufficiently conservative to command both the Whig and American votes, and I had no faith whatever in the success of a distinctive Republican candidate and party. I was surprised to find the Republicans of New England and of New York who were attending the convention in favor of a radical Republican policy, and I was so much dissatisfied with the evident outcome of the convention that, although I attended its first session, I did not enroll as a delegate, and did not participate in any of its important proceedings. I well remember meeting Mr. Greeley among the first of those who came to the convention, and wondered how he had lost all his political cunning when he told me, in the most enthusiastic way, that Fremont would carry New York by 50,000 majority, and that the Republican party would be sufficiently strong to win the battle without any concessions whatever to the other elements opposed to the Democratic party. I had no faith in Fremont, either as a candidate or as a President. I shared the general conservative Whig sentiment of Pennsylvania that the Republican convention in nominating Fremont on a square-toed Republican platform was altogether too “wild and woolley” in flavor to win at the election. Greeley was mistaken as to New York only in making the Republican majority one-third less than it turned up on election night, when Fremont had nearly as many votes as Buchanan and Fillmore combined.
The nomination of Fremont was engineered by some of the shrewdest of the old Democratic leaders, most conspicuous of whom was the elder Francis P. Blair, who had been one of the most sagacious of the Democratic politicians during the administrations of Jackson, Van Buren, and Polk. They believed it best to take a candidate for the Presidency who had no political record whatever to antagonize the conflicting political views which must be united to give the party success; and Fremont was young, had served in the army with credit, had made what then were regarded as wonderful explorations in the Rocky Mountains, and had the distinction of having been forced to retire from the army for what was claimed to have been conspicuously heroic and patriotic action on his part. He had never said anything or done anything to offend any political prejudice. It turned out that he was strongest where he was least known. The old California Forty-niners, who were back in Pennsylvania, and some of them prominent in politics, did not enthuse over Fremont’s nomination. I distinctly recollect the trite summing up of Fremont’s qualities by one who had been with him in California by saying: “Fremont is a millionaire without a dollar, a soldier who never fought a battle, and a statesman who never made a speech;” but that his nomination was altogether the strongest that could have been made in the Philadelphia convention cannot be doubted by any who study the history of that contest and the marvellous political revolution it wrought. Henry S. Lane, of Indiana, presided over the convention, and a single ballot was had for President, as follows:
| STATES. | Fremont. | McLean. |
|---|---|---|
| Maine | 13 | 11 |
| New Hampshire | 15 | — |
| Vermont | 15 | — |
| Massachusetts | 39 | — |
| Rhode Island | 12 | — |
| Connecticut | 18 | — |
| New York | 93 | 3 |
| New Jersey | 7 | 14 |
| Pennsylvania | 10 | 71 |
| Delaware | — | 9 |
| Maryland | 4 | 3 |
| Ohio | 30 | 39 |
| Indiana | 18 | 21 |
| Illinois | 14 | 19 |
| Michigan | 18 | — |
| Wisconsin | 15 | — |
| Iowa | 12 | — |
| Minnesota | — | 3 |
| Kansas | 9 | — |
| Nebraska | — | 3 |
| Kentucky | 5 | — |
| California | 12 | — |
| Totals | 359 | 196 |
The nomination of Fremont was made unanimous with great enthusiasm, and there was only one ballot for Vice-President, resulting as follows:
| William L. Dayton, N. J. | 259 |
| Abraham Lincoln, Ill. | 110 |
| N. P. Banks, Mass. | 46 |
| David Wilmot, Penn. | 43 |
| Charles Sumner, Mass. | 35 |
| Jacob Collamer, Vt. | 15 |
| John A. King, N. Y. | 9 |
| S. C. Pomeroy, Kan. | 8 |
| Thomas Ford, Ohio | 7 |
| Henry Wilson, Mass. | 5 |
| Cassius M. Clay, Ky. | 4 |
| Henry C. Carey, Penn. | 3 |
| Wm. F. Johnston, Penn. | 2 |
Mr. Dayton was then declared the nominee of the convention by a unanimous vote, and the following platform was adopted:
This convention of delegates, assembled in pursuance of a call addressed to the people of the United States, without regard to past political differences or divisions, who are opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, to the policy of the present administration, to the extension of slavery into Free Territory; in favor of admitting Kansas as a Free State, of restoring the action of the Federal Government to the principles of Washington and Jefferson; and who purpose to unite in presenting candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President, do resolve as follows:
Resolved, That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution is essential to the preservation of our republican institutions, and that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the States, and the union of the States, shall be preserved.
Resolved, That with our republican fathers we hold it to be a self-evident truth, that all men are endowed with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that the primary object and ulterior designs of our Federal Government were to secure these rights to all persons within its exclusive jurisdiction; that, as our republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, it becomes our duty to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it for the purpose of establishing slavery in any Territory of the United States, by positive legislation, prohibiting its existence or extension therein. That we deny 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.
Resolved, That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the Territories of the United States, for their government, and that in the exercise of this power it is both the right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery.
Resolved, That while the Constitution of the United States was ordained and established by the people in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, and secure the blessings of liberty, and contains ample provision for the protection of the life, liberty, and property of every citizen, the dearest constitutional rights of the people of Kansas have been fraudulently and violently taken from them; their territory has been invaded by an armed force; spurious and pretended legislative, judicial, and executive officers have been set over them, by whose usurped authority, sustained by the military power of the Government, tyrannical and unconstitutional laws have been enacted and enforced; the rights of the people to keep and bear arms have been infringed; test oaths of an extraordinary and entangling nature have been imposed as a condition of exercising the right of suffrage and holding office; the right of an accused person to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury has been denied; the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures has been violated; they have been deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of law; that the freedom of speech and of the press has been abridged; the right to choose their representatives has been made of no effect; murders, robberies, and arsons have been instigated and encouraged, and the offenders have been allowed to go unpunished; that all these things have been done with the knowledge, sanction, and procurement of the present administration; and that for this high crime against the Constitution, the Union, and humanity, we arraign the administration, the President, his advisers, agents, supporters, apologists, and accessories, either before or after the fact, before the country and before the world, and that it is our fixed purpose to bring the actual perpetrators of these atrocious outrages, and their accomplices, to a sure and condign punishment hereafter.
Resolved, That Kansas should be immediately admitted as a State of the Union, with her present free Constitution, as at once the most effectual way of securing to her citizens the enjoyment of the rights and privileges to which they are entitled, and of ending the civil strife now raging in her territory.
Resolved, That the highwayman’s plea, that “might makes right,” embodied in the Ostend circular, was in every respect unworthy of American diplomacy, and would bring shame and dishonor upon any government or people that gave it their sanction.
Resolved, That a railroad to the Pacific Ocean, by the most central and practical route, is imperatively demanded by the interests of the whole country, and that the Federal Government ought to render immediate and efficient aid in its construction; and, as an auxiliary thereto, the immediate construction of an emigrant route on the line of the railroad.
Resolved, That appropriations by Congress for the improvement of rivers and harbors, of a national character, required for the accommodation and security of our existing commerce, are authorized by the Constitution, and justified by the obligation of Government to protect the lives and property of its citizens.
The American or Know-Nothing party had become the leading factor of the opposition elements to Democracy in the elections of 1854–55. In some sections the Whig party was entirely obliterated, and in the South there was no organization opposed to Democracy but the American. The cardinal principle of its faith was that “Americans must rule America,” and its opposition to the Catholic Church was positive and pronounced. It had gravitated from the original Native Americans of 1844 into the Order of United Americans, and it coalesced with the remnants of the Whig party and with the antiadministration Democrats in most of the Northern States. It had reached about its highest measure of strength in 1855, chiefly because of its strong hold in the South. In New England and the far Western States the Americans had been very generally absorbed in the Republican organization when the battle opened for the Presidency in 1856.
The American National Council was called to meet in Philadelphia on the 19th of February, 1856, and nearly all the States were represented. The Council was a secret body, in accordance with the usages of the party. After three days of animated discussion it adopted a party platform, and on the 22d of February the Council adjourned and organized the American National Nominating Convention. Ephraim Marsh, of New Jersey, was made president. An earnest effort was made in the convention to antagonize the right of the National Council to make the platform for the party. Mr. Killinger, of Pennsylvania, offered a resolution, declaring that the Council had no authority to prescribe a platform of principles, and that the convention should nominate no man for President or Vice-President “who is not in favor of interdicting the introduction of slavery into territory North 36° 30´ by Congressional action,” but his proposition failed by a vote of 141 to 59. The failure of this resolution led to the retirement from the convention of the more pronounced antislavery delegates or North Americans, as they were called. The convention then proceeded to ballot for President as follows:
| 1st Ballot. | 2d Ballot. | |
|---|---|---|
| M. Fillmore, New York | 71 | 179 |
| George Law, New York | 27 | 24 |
| Garrett Davis, Kentucky | 13 | 10 |
| John McLean, Ohio | 7 | 13 |
| R. F. Stockton, New Jersey | 8 | — |
| Sam. Houston, Texas | 6 | 3 |
| John Bell, Tennessee | 5 | — |
| Kenneth Raynor, North Carolina | 2 | 14 |
| Erastus Brooks, New York | 2 | — |
| Lewis D. Campbell, Ohio | 1 | — |
| John M. Clayton, Delaware | 1 | — |
After the 2d ballot, Mr. Fillmore was unanimously declared the nominee, and on the 1st ballot Andrew Jackson Donelson, of Tennessee, who was the adopted son of General Jackson, was nominated for Vice-President, receiving 181 votes to 8 for Governor Gardner, of Massachusetts, 8 for Percy Walker, of Alabama, and 8 for Kenneth Raynor, of North Carolina. The following platform was then unanimously adopted:
1. An humble acknowledgment of the Supreme Being, for his protecting care vouchsafed to our fathers in their successful Revolutionary struggle, and hitherto manifested to us, their descendants, in the preservation of their liberties, the independence and the union of these States.
2. The perpetuation of the Federal Union and Constitution, as the palladium of our civil and religious liberties and the only sure bulwark of American independence.
3. Americans must rule America; and to this end native-born citizens should be selected for all State, Federal and municipal offices of Government employment, in preference to all others. Nevertheless,
4. Persons born of American parents residing temporarily abroad should be entitled to all the rights of native-born citizens.
5. No person should be selected for political station (whether of native or foreign birth) who recognizes any allegiance or obligation of any description to any foreign prince, potentate, or power, or who refuses to recognize the Federal and State Constitutions (each within its sphere) as paramount to all other laws as rules of political action.
6. The unqualified recognition and maintenance of the reserved rights of the several States, and the cultivation of harmony and fraternal good-will between the citizens of the several States, and, to this end, non-interference by Congress with questions appertaining solely to the individual States, and non-intervention by each State with the affairs of any other State.
7. The recognition of the right of native-born and naturalized citizens of the United States, permanently residing in any Territory thereof, to frame their constitution and laws, and to regulate their domestic and social affairs in their own mode, subject only to the provisions of the Federal Constitution, with the privilege of admission into the Union whenever they have the requisite population for one representative in Congress; provided, always, that none but those who are citizens of the United States, under the Constitution and laws thereof, and who have a fixed residence in any such Territory, ought to participate in the formation of a constitution or in the enactment of laws for said Territory or State.
8. An enforcement of the principle that no State or Territory ought to admit others than citizens to the right of suffrage, or of holding political offices of the United States.
9. A change in the laws of naturalization, making a continued residence of twenty-one years, of all not heretofore provided for, an indispensable requisite for citizenship hereafter, and excluding all paupers and persons convicted of crime from landing upon our shores; but no interference with the vested rights of foreigners.
10. Opposition to any union between Church and State; no interference with religious faith or worship, and no test oaths for office.
11. Free and thorough investigation into any and all alleged abuses of public functionaries, and a strict economy in public expenditures.
12. The maintenance and enforcement of all laws constitutionally enacted, until said laws shall be repealed or shall be declared null and void by competent judicial authority.
13. Opposition to the reckless and unwise policy of the present administration in the general management of our national affairs, and more especially as shown in removing “Americans” (by designation) and conservatives in principle from office, and placing foreigners and ultraists in their places; as shown in a truckling subserviency to the stronger, and an insolent and cowardly bravado toward the weaker powers; as shown in reopening sectional agitation, by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; as shown in granting to unnaturalized foreigners the right of suffrage in Kansas and Nebraska; as shown in its vacillating course on the Kansas and Nebraska question; as shown in the corruptions which pervade some of the departments of the Government; as shown in disgracing meritorious naval officers through prejudice or caprice; and as shown in the blundering mismanagement of our foreign relations.
14. Therefore, to remedy existing evils, and to prevent the disastrous consequences otherwise resulting therefrom, we would build up the “American party” upon the principles hereinbefore stated.
15. That each State Council shall have authority to amend their several constitutions, so as to abolish the several degrees, and substitute a pledge of honor, instead of other obligations, for fellowship and admission into the party.
16. A free and open discussion of all political principles embraced in our platform.
The seceding delegates, consisting of the antislavery wing of the party and small in number, organized a convention of their own, and without the formality of a ballot, nominated John C. Fremont, of California, for President, and Ex-Governor William F. Johnston, of Pennsylvania, for Vice-President, but they finally supported Fremont and Dayton.
The fragments of the old Whig party met in national convention at Baltimore on the 17th of September, in which 26 States were raggedly represented. Edward Bates, of Missouri, presided over the convention, and the proceedings were uneventful. Fillmore and Donelson, the candidates nominated by the American party, were unanimously nominated for President and Vice-President by resolution, and the following platform adopted:
Resolved, That the Whigs of the United States, now here assembled, hereby declare their reverence for the Constitution of the United States, their unalterable attachment to the national Union, and a fixed determination to do all in their power to preserve them for themselves and their posterity. They have no new principles to announce, no new platform to establish, but are content to broadly rest—where their fathers rested—upon the Constitution of the United States, wishing no safer guide, no higher law.
Resolved, That we regard with the deepest interest and anxiety the present disordered condition of our national affairs—a portion of the country ravaged by civil war, large sections of our population embittered by mutual recriminations; and we distinctly trace these calamities to the culpable neglect of duty by the present national administration.
Resolved, That the Government of the United States was formed by the conjunction in political unity of widespread geographical sections, materially differing not only in climate and products, but in social and domestic institutions; and that any cause that shall permanently array the different sections of the Union in political hostility and organized parties, founded only on geographical distinctions, must inevitably prove fatal to a continuance of the national Union.
Resolved, That the Whigs of the United States declare, as a fundamental rule of political faith, an absolute necessity for avoiding geographical parties. The danger so clearly discerned by the Father of his Country has now become fearfully apparent in the agitation now convulsing the nation, and must be arrested at once if we would preserve our Constitution and our Union from dismemberment, and the name of America from being blotted out from the family of civilized nations.
Resolved, That all who revere the Constitution and the Union must look with alarm at the parties in the field in the present Presidential campaign—one claiming only to represent sixteen Northern States, and the other appealing mainly to the passions and prejudices of the Southern States; that the success of either faction must add fuel to the flame which now threatens to wrap our dearest interests in a common ruin.
Resolved, That the only remedy for an evil so appalling is to support a candidate pledged to neither of the geographical sections now arrayed in political antagonism, but holding both in a just and equal regard. We congratulate the friends of the Union that such a candidate exists in Millard Fillmore.
Resolved, That, without adopting or referring to the peculiar doctrines of the party which has already selected Mr. Fillmore as a candidate, we look to him as a well-tried and faithful friend of the Constitution and the Union, eminent alike for his wisdom and firmness; for his justice and moderation in our foreign relations; for his calm and pacific temperament, so well becoming the head of a great nation; for his devotion to the Constitution in its true spirit; his inflexibility in executing the laws; but, beyond all these attributes, in possessing the one transcendant merit of being a representative of neither of the two sectional parties now struggling for political supremacy.
Resolved, That, in the present exigency of political affairs, we are not called upon to discuss the subordinate questions of administration in the exercising of the constitutional powers of the Government. It is enough to know that civil war is raging, and that the Union is imperilled; and we proclaim the conviction that the restoration of Mr. Fillmore to the Presidency will furnish the best if not the only means of restoring peace.
The campaign of 1856 was one of the most desperately fought conflicts in the history of American politics. In some of the Northern States, and particularly in Pennsylvania, that had to be carried against Buchanan in October to give promise of his defeat, the American party, or the supporters of Fillmore and Donelson, were nearly or quite as strong as the distinctive Republicans. Both were opposed to the election of Buchanan, but they were wide apart not only on the slavery issue, but on the questions of citizenship and religious proscription. As the contest warmed up the necessity for some sort of union between these elements was accepted on both sides, and in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, and some other States the Americans, Republicans, and old Whigs united on State tickets. Illinois, while it gave its electoral vote to Buchanan, elected Colonel Bissell, an antislavery and anti-Buchanan Democrat, Governor, and in Pennsylvania the Democratic ticket was successful in October only by a very small majority.
In several of the States they harmonized on an electoral ticket. They did it by printing two electoral tickets for the two wings of the opposition. On one ticket the first candidate for elector was John C. Fremont, and on the other ticket was the name of Millard Fillmore. The understanding was that if the Union electoral ticket succeeded, the entire vote, less the one lost by using the names of Fillmore and Fremont, should be cast for either candidate if thereby he could be elected, and if such united vote would not elect either candidate the vote was to be divided between Fillmore and Fremont, as the voters indicated by the first name at the head of the ticket.
In common with the great mass of conservative Whigs who were at first greatly disappointed in the nomination of Fremont and the radical attitude of the new Republican party, I gradually drifted into the contest because of the offensive deliverances on slavery made by the Cincinnati platform. I knew Mr. Buchanan personally, and if I could have obeyed my individual preferences as to a candidate, would have voted for him. The slavery issue soon became so sharply defined that the great mass of the Whigs of the North fell in to the support of Fremont. There was considerable defection of prominent Whigs in Buchanan’s State, embracing the Reeds, the Ingersolls, the Whartons, the Randalls, and others of Philadelphia, whose conservative Whig views, with their great personal respect for Buchanan, influenced them to support him. Buchanan was not a magnetic man, not a popular man in the common acceptation of the term, but he was respected by all not only for his ability, but for his integrity and generally blameless reputation. He was a very courteous gentleman, but the multitude did not rush into his arms as it did into the arms of Clay and Blaine, and it is quite probable that his bachelor life, a destiny given him by a devotion with tragic end, doubtless made him less genial than he might have been.
Pennsylvania was the pivotal State in the contest, and Colonel Forney was chairman of the Democratic State Committee. He was thoroughly familiar with the political situation, and greatly impaired his health by his exhaustive efforts to save Buchanan in his home State. His relations with Buchanan were of the closest and most confidential nature, and each implicitly trusted the other. Buchanan knew Forney’s ability in the management of a great political battle, and there was no concealment between them as to the reward Forney should receive if Buchanan succeeded. Forney’s ambition was to continue in journalism, and it was not only understood, but the assurance voluntarily given to Forney by Buchanan, that if Buchanan became President, Forney should conduct the national organ in Washington and receive the Senate printing. What was then known as the Senate printing was an abuse that had grown up from small to large proportions until it became a fortune to any man who received it during the period of an administration. Gales and Seaton, of the National Intelligencer, had enjoyed it for many years, and when Democratic administrations became more distinctly partisan the favoritism was continued and the profits magnified. It was deemed a necessity for each administration to have an organ, and it was accepted in those days as the Democratic oracle of the nation. By making Forney the editor of the administration organ at Washington with the Senate printing, his highest ambition in his journalistic career would have been gratified, with ample fortune added. So intimate were Buchanan and Forney, that Forney’s family spent part of the summer at Wheatland, where Forney would occasionally tarry for a day’s rest and to consult with his chief.
Both parties were very confident of carrying the State in October, but Forney outgeneralled the leaders of the Union ticket by his masterful manipulation of Philadelphia, and the Buchanan State ticket was successful in October by 3500 majority. Had the Buchanan State ticket been defeated, Buchanan’s defeat for President would have been clearly foreshadowed, as it would doubtless have made a successful union on the electoral tickets in New Jersey, Indiana, and Illinois, as had already been done in Pennsylvania. Notwithstanding the loss of Pennsylvania in October, the friends of Fremont and Fillmore made desperate efforts to carry the State in November, and so well did they fight their battle that Buchanan’s majority in the State over the combined vote of Fremont and Fillmore was only 1025. The Fremont and Fillmore people believed that they had been defrauded out of the October election in Pennsylvania, and Forney was denounced with extreme bitterness that had lost none of its intensity in the Senatorial fight of 1857, when the resentments of the opposition made Forney’s defeat for Senator possible in a Democratic Legislature.
Buchanan, Fremont, and Fillmore each bore themselves with great dignity during the campaign. Fillmore was not in sympathy with Buchanan, but he had even less sympathy for Fremont and the radical Republican policy he represented. Fremont made his home during the contest in New York, under the strictest orders not to discuss any political question, either orally or by letter, with any outside of those in charge of his campaign. Along with several others, I called upon him at his home some time before the election, simply to pay our respects to the man we were supporting for President, and he was so extremely cautious that he evaded the most ordinary expressions relating to the conduct and prospects of the battle. He impressed me as possessing a stronger individuality than I had credited him with, and his enforced policy of silence made him appear as a severely dignified gentleman with strong intellectual possibilities. But considering the record he made in the early part of the war, when he had, for the first time, opportunity to display his abilities, there are few who will not feel that his election to the Presidency might have been equally disastrous to himself and to the country.
The battle ended by the election of Buchanan, although Fremont carried the New England States and New York and the Northwestern Democratic States with the whirl of the tempest. The following table exhibits the popular and electoral vote:
| STATES. | Popular Vote. | Electoral Vote. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| James Buchanan, Penn. | John C. Fremont, Cal. | Millard Fillmore, N. Y. | Buchanan. | Fremont. | Fillmore. | |
| Maine | 39,080 | 67,379 | 3,325 | — | 8 | — |
| New Hampshire | 32,789 | 38,345 | 422 | — | 5 | — |
| Vermont | 10,569 | 39,561 | 545 | — | 5 | — |
| Massachusetts | 39,240 | 108,190 | 19,626 | — | 13 | — |
| Rhode Island | 6,680 | 11,467 | 1,675 | — | 4 | — |
| Connecticut | 34,995 | 42,715 | 2,615 | — | 6 | — |
| New York | 195,878 | 276,007 | 124,604 | — | 35 | — |
| New Jersey | 46,943 | 28,338 | 24,115 | 7 | — | — |
| Pennsylvania | 230,710 | 147,510 | 82,175 | 27 | — | — |
| Delaware | 8,004 | 308 | 6,175 | 3 | — | — |
| Maryland | 39,115 | 281 | 47,460 | — | — | 8 |
| Virginia | 89,706 | 291 | 60,310 | 15 | — | — |
| North Carolina | 48,246 | —— | 36,886 | 10 | — | — |
| South Carolina[15] | —— | —— | —— | 8 | — | — |
| Georgia | 56,578 | —— | 42,228 | 10 | — | — |
| Alabama | 46,739 | —— | 28,552 | 9 | — | — |
| Florida | 6,358 | —— | 24,195 | 7 | — | — |
| Louisiana | 22,164 | —— | 20,709 | 6 | — | — |
| Texas | 31,169 | —— | 15,639 | 4 | — | — |
| Arkansas | 21,910 | —— | 10,787 | 4 | — | — |
| Missouri | 58,164 | —— | 48,524 | 9 | — | — |
| Tennessee | 73,638 | —— | 66,178 | 12 | — | — |
| Kentucky | 74,642 | 314 | 67,416 | 12 | — | — |
| Ohio | 170,874 | 187,497 | 28,126 | — | 23 | — |
| Michigan | 52,136 | 71,762 | 1,660 | — | 6 | — |
| Indiana | 118,670 | 94,375 | 22,386 | 13 | — | — |
| Illinois | 105,348 | 96,189 | 37,444 | 11 | — | — |
| Wisconsin | 52,843 | 66,090 | 579 | — | 5 | — |
| Iowa | 36,170 | 43,954 | 9,180 | — | 4 | — |
| California | 53,365 | 20,691 | 36,165 | 4 | — | — |
| Totals | 1,838,169 | 1,341,264 | 874,534 | 174 | 114 | 8 |
A quarrel between Buchanan and Forney was more far-reaching in its results than can well be estimated by those not entirely familiar with the beginning and the end of the dispute. During the campaign, Buchanan, greatly pressed with the increased correspondence that came to him, asked Forney to send him a competent and trustworthy secretary, and Buchanan, for the first time, abandoned his uniform policy of writing all his own letters in clear, beautiful copper-plate style. Forney sent one of his own assistants to aid Buchanan, and having charge of Buchanan’s correspondence he became cognizant of the fact that the Southern leaders were very generally and earnestly demanding of Buchanan the pledge that Forney should not be made editor of the administration organ.
Buchanan parried the appeals of the Southern friends for some time, but finally, knowing that his election depended upon a united South, they became mandatory, and Buchanan, without advising Forney of the fact, finally gave his pledge that Forney should not be chosen. The secretary was indignant at this betrayal of his friend, and quietly sought Forney, advised him of the fact and expressed his purpose not to return. Forney required the secretary to go back and perform his duties and take no note of what had happened. He was greatly disappointed, as it denied him what was the great ambition of his life, involving editorial distinction and fortune, but he believed that Buchanan had yielded to imperious necessity and that he would not be allowed to suffer from the change.
It was not until after the election that Buchanan informed Forney of the necessity of making a change in his reward, and Forney proposed to accept a position in the Cabinet, to which Buchanan would have willingly consented, but the same intense opposition to Forney as a Cabinet officer surged against him from the South. It was next proposed by Buchanan that Forney should take the Berlin mission with a liberal commercial salary added, but Mrs. Forney peremptorily refused to entertain it. It was finally agreed that Forney should be elected to the Senate. The Democrats had a majority of three on joint ballot, and it was not doubted that any Democrat nominated by the caucus would be chosen. Henry D. Foster, a very prominent Democrat, who had been in Congress and who was the Democratic candidate for Governor in 1860, was a member of the House. He was a candidate for Senator, and doubtless would have been chosen had Forney not been suddenly injected into the field. It was not until the Legislature was about to meet that Forney’s candidacy was decided upon. It required very prompt and positive action to secure the nomination of Forney, and Buchanan, with all his extreme caution under ordinary circumstances, wrote a letter to Senator Mott urging the election of Forney. That letter became public and greatly exasperated the friends of the other candidates, but a new Democratic administration with the President from the State and just on the threshold of great political power was able to command the nomination for Forney, and it was accomplished, but leaving many open sores.
The Republicans and Americans of the Legislature were smarting under what they regarded as the fraud that Forney engineered to give the State to Buchanan, and they were quite willing to join any movement to defeat him. General Cameron had come into the Republican party in 1856, and was at the head of the electoral ticket, and he had a very strong hold upon some old Democratic friends. He proposed to the Republicans and Americans of the Legislature that if they would give him a united vote he could command three Democratic votes and be elected. The Union caucus, as it was called, appointed a committee to whom three Democrats must be shown and give their pledges to vote for Cameron, and if such report was made back to the caucus by the committee, without giving the names of the Democrats who were to vote for Cameron, the Republicans were pledged to vote unitedly for Cameron on the 1st ballot. The committee saw Representatives Lebo, Maneer, and Wagonseller, Democrats, who pledged themselves to vote for Cameron if they could elect him, and to the surprise of all parties except the very few who understood the arrangement, Cameron was elected Senator and Forney suffered a most humiliating defeat.
After Forney’s defeat for Senator, it became much more difficult than even before for Buchanan to reward him, as he doubtless felt should be done. Efforts were made to give him a liberal share of the post-office printing, but Forney and Buchanan were gradually becoming estranged, and finally Forney decided that he could not harmonize with Buchanan and his friends, and that he would renew his journalistic career on independent lines. The result was the establishment of the Philadelphia Press.
The slavery issue speedily divided Douglas and Buchanan, and Forney had his opportunity. He had suffered much from the proscriptive hatred of the South, and he became Douglas’s ablest and most enthusiastic supporter in the North, which brought him into direct antagonism with Buchanan. From the time that battle began, Forney and Buchanan were strangers during the remainder of their lives, and no one man did more to educate the North up to the election of Abraham Lincoln than John W. Forney.
We are told that the political methods of the present age are greatly degenerate as compared with the political methods of the old-school leaders, of which Buchanan was about the last representative in the White House. It will surprise many of the present day to be told that Buchanan gave personal attention not only to organize county leaders in his support for the Presidency, but wrote elaborate letters even to township leaders. I have in my possession a number of Mr. Buchanan’s anti-Presidential letters, and I think it due to the truth of history to give one of them as a foot-note to illustrate the politics of half a century ago.[16] Perry County, to which the letter refers, is a small county adjoining Franklin, the birthplace of Buchanan. It had only a single delegate to the Democratic State Convention, and, considering Buchanan’s location, he should have been able to command its support without special effort. The friend to whom he wrote was an Associate Judge of the county and active in politics, and when it is remembered that this letter is only one of very many written to a single small county to gain a single delegate for Buchanan against General Cass, who lived in a distant State, the political methods employed to reach the Presidency in that day will be generally accepted as no improvement on the methods now employed to gain the highest honors of the Republic.
Buchanan entered the Presidency earnestly determined to end the slavery agitation, but unfortunately he hoped to end it by the unqualified success of slavery in all of the new Territories and the right of transit through the free States of slaves as servants. The Dred Scott decision was foreshadowed in his inaugural address, and he and the pro-slavery statesmen of that time were confident that the Republican ebullition of 1856 was a mere tidal wave that would speedily perish, and that the South would be so strongly entrenched for the defence of slavery that it could not be successfully assailed. He was elected by the South; he was the strictest of strict constructionists on all Constitutional questions, and he naturally sustained the South in going far beyond what his judgment approved in the efforts to force slavery into Kansas and Nebraska.
The strength of the slavery sentiment steadily grew under the aggravations of the pro-slavery men who sought to force slavery into the new Territories of the West, and it was this continued discussion and the outrages perpetrated on the people of Kansas and Nebraska that made the election of a Republican President possible in 1860, and that finally precipitated the Civil War. Buchanan adhered to the South until open rebellion was organized by the capture of forts and arsenals and the organization of a Confederate government, but when he found himself powerless to restrain the South from armed rebellion, he reorganized his Cabinet and exhausted his then wasted powers to bring the South into submission to the Government. He had an aggressively loyal Cabinet during the last few months of his administration, and when he retired, generally denounced by the loyal sentiment of the country as a faithless Executive, he earnestly supported the Government in every measure necessary to suppress the rebellion and prevent the dismemberment of the Republic. He died soon after the close of the war, a thoroughly honest and patriotic public servant, but widely misunderstood. His revolutionary Kansas-Nebraska policy made the Republican revolution of 1860 inevitable, and made Abraham Lincoln President.