FOOTNOTES
[1] Franklin Pierce was born in New Hampshire in 1804, and died in 1869. He began his political career in the state legislature, went to Congress in 1833, and to the United States Senate in 1837. In the war with Mexico, Pierce rose from the ranks to a brigadier generalship. He was a bitter opponent of anti-slavery measures; but when the Civil War opened he became a Union man.
[2] The electoral vote was, for Pierce, 254; for Scott, 42. The popular vote was, for Pierce, 1,601,474; for Scott, 1,386,580; for Hale, 155,667.
[3] Stephen A. Douglas was born in Vermont in 1813, went west in 1833, was made attorney-general of Illinois in 1834, secretary of state and judge of the supreme court of Illinois in 1840, a member of Congress in 1843, and of the United States Senate in 1847. He was a small man, but one of such mental power that he was called "the Little Giant." He was a candidate for the presidential nomination in the Democratic conventions of 1852 and 1856, and in 1860 was nominated by the Northern wing of that party. He was a Union man.
[4] For popular opinion on the Kansas-Nebraska bill, read Rhodes's History of the U. S., Vol. I, pp. 461-470.
[5] Proslavery men from Missouri and other Southern states founded Atchison, Leavenworth, Lecompton, and Kickapoo, in the northeastern part of Kansas. Free-state men from the North founded Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan, Osawatomie, in the east-central part of the territory.
[6] In 1856 border war raged in Kansas, settlers were murdered, property destroyed, and the free-state town of Lawrence was sacked by the proslavery men. In 1857 the proslavery party made a slave-state constitution at Lecompton and applied for admission, and the Senate (1858) voted to admit Kansas under it; but the House refused. In 1859 the Free- soilers made a second (the Wyandotte) constitution, under which Kansas was admitted into the Union (1861).
[7] The breaking up of old parties over the slavery issues naturally brought up the question of forming a new party, and at a meeting at Ripon in Wisconsin in 1854, it was proposed to call the new party Republican. After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, a thousand citizens of Michigan signed a call for a state convention, at which a Republican state party was formed and a ticket nominated on which were Whigs, Free-soilers, and Anti-Nebraska Democrats. Similar "fusion tickets," as they were called, were adopted in eight other states. The success of the new party in the elections of 1854, and its still greater success in 1855, led to a call for a convention at Pittsburg on Washington's Birthday, 1856. There and then the national Republican party was founded.
[8] The American party was the outcome of a long-prevalent feeling against the election of foreign-born citizens to office. At many times and at many places this feeling had produced political organizations. But it was not till 1852 that a secret, oath-bound organization, with signs, grips, and passwords, was formed and spread its membership rapidly through most of the states. As its members would not tell its principles and methods, and professed entire ignorance of them when questioned, the American party was called in derision "the Know-nothings." Its success, however, was great, and in 1855 Know-nothing governors and legislatures were elected in eight states, and heavy votes polled in six more.
[9] The electoral vote was, for Buchanan, 174; for Frémont, 114; for Fillmore, 8. The popular vote was, for Buchanan, 1,838,169; for Frémont, 1,341,264; for Fillmore, 874,534. James Buchanan was born in Pennsylvania in 1791, was educated at school and college, studied law, served in the state legislature, was five times elected to the House of Representatives, and three times to the Senate. In the Senate he was a warm supporter of Jackson, and favored the annexation of Texas under Tyler. He was Secretary of State under Polk, and had been minister to Great Britain.
[10] The Chief Justice ruled that no negro whose ancestors had been brought as slaves into the United States could be a citizen; Scott therefore was not a citizen, and hence could not sue in any United States court.
[11] Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky, February 12, 1809, and while still a child was taken by his parents to Indiana. The first winter was spent in a half-faced camp, and for several years the log cabin that replaced it had neither door nor wood floor. Twelve months' "schooling" was all he ever had; but he was fond of books and borrowed Aesop's Fables, Robinson Crusoe, and Weems's Life of Washington, the book in which first appeared the fabulous story of the hatchet and the cherry tree. At nineteen Lincoln went as a flatboatman to New Orleans. In 1830 his father moved to Illinois, where Lincoln helped build the cabin and split the rails to fence in the land, and then went on another flatboat voyage to New Orleans. He became a clerk in a store in 1831, served as a volunteer in the Black Hawk War, tried business and failed, became postmaster of New Salem, which soon ceased to have a post office, supported himself as plowman, farm hand, and wood cutter, and tried surveying; but made so many friends that in 1834 he was sent to the legislature, and reelected in 1836, 1838, and 1840. He now began the practice of law, settled in Springfield, was elected to Congress in 1846, and served there one term.
[12] For a description of the Lincoln-Douglas debate of 1858, read Rhodes's History of the U. S., Vol. II, pp. 314-338.
[13] Many persons regarded Brown as a martyr. Read Whittier's Brown of Ossawatomie, or Stedman's How Old Brown took Harper's Ferry. Read, also, Rhodes's History of the U. S., Vol. II, pp. 383-398.
[14] The platform of the Republicans adopted in 1860 (at Chicago) sets forth: (1) that the party repudiates the principles of the Dred Scott decision, (2) that Kansas must be admitted as a free state, (3) that the territories must be free soil, and (4) that slavery in existing states should not be interfered with.
[15] The electoral vote was, for Lincoln, 180; for Douglas, 12; for Breckinridge, 72; for Bell, 39. The popular vote was, for Lincoln, 1,866,452; for Douglas, 1,376,957; for Breckinridge, 849,781; for Bell, 588,879. Lincoln received no votes at all in ten Southern states. The popular votes were so distributed that if those for Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell had all been cast for one of the candidates, Lincoln would still have been elected President (by 173 electoral votes to 130).