STATES.Popular Vote.Electors.
Franklin Pierce, N. H.Winfield Scott, N. Y.John P. Hale, N. H.Pierce.Scott.
Maine41,60932,5438,0308—
New Hampshire29,99716,1476,6955—
Vermont13,04422,1738,621—5
Massachusetts44,56952,68328,023—13
Rhode Island8,7357,6266444—
Connecticut33,24930,3573,1606—
New York262,083234,88225,32935—
New Jersey44,30538,5563507—
Pennsylvania198,568179,1748,52527—
Delaware6,3186,293623—
Maryland40,02035,066548—
Virginia73,85858,572——15—
North Carolina39,74439,058——10—
South Carolina[14]——————8—
Georgia34,70516,660——10—
Alabama26,88115,038——9—
Florida4,3182,875——3—
Mississippi26,87617,548——7—
Louisiana18,64717,255——6—
Texas13,5524,995——4—
Arkansas12,1797,404——4—
Missouri38,35329,984——9—
Tennessee57,01858,898———12
Kentucky53,80657,068———12
Ohio169,220152,52631,68223—
Michigan41,84233,8597,2376—
Indiana95,34080,9016,92913—
Illinois80,59764,9349,96611—
Wisconsin33,65822,2408,8145—
Iowa17,76315,8561,6044—
California40,62635,4071004—
Totals1,601,2741,386,580155,82525442

President Pierce could have had a tranquil administration and generally maintained sectional peace if he had not wantonly reopened the slavery issue by assenting to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and making it a Democratic measure. Kansas and Nebraska, which were north of the Missouri line, whose territory had been solemnly dedicated to freedom by the Missouri Compromise of 1820, that admitted Missouri as a Slave State, were coveted by the slavery extensionists, and they decided not only against the solemnly plighted faith of the nation, but, in disregard of climatic objections, to force slavery in both of those Territories and make them Slave States. The slavery propagandists had failed to gather any substantial fruits for slavery from our Mexican acquisitions, and in the desperation of the suicide they resolved to force slavery into Kansas and Nebraska by a system of violence that was generally described at that time as “border ruffianism,” and that made the name of John Brown immortal.

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise was the beginning of the end of slavery. It was noticed that there could be no peace with Northern industry and progress advancing rapidly and hastening the formation of new States, while the South was standing still. A number of new and very able men had been called into the political arena by the slavery agitation. Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, and Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, were both elected to the Senate by a solid Democratic vote, united with the Free Soilers of their respective Legislatures. Henry Wilson, the “Natick Cobbler,” had become more potent in Massachusetts than was Webster at the time of his death; and the antislavery sentiment was visibly and speedily growing toward immense proportions.

The Whig party made its final battle in 1852, although it was nominally in the field in 1856, and a new party was created out of the odds and ends of the old Native American party. Opposition to Catholics had been intensified by Pierce appointing Judge Campbell, of Philadelphia, Postmaster-General. He was a very able and faithful Cabinet officer, and there was no pretence that his religious views in any way influenced his official appointments, but it revived the embers of Native Americanism, and the great mass of the Whigs, who knew that the Whig party had practically perished, and the antislavery Democrats were without political vocations. They were like the Federalists who first found refuge in anti-Masonry, and with anti-Masonry afterward found refuge in the Whig party. The result was the very rapid spread of the new American, or what was commonly called the Know-Nothing party, with secret lodges and its members all sworn not to divulge the movements of the organization and to vote for its nominated candidates. It exhibited wonderful strength in many localities early in 1854, and it was not uncommon in local elections, when the vote was counted, to find that all the officers elected were unknown to the public as candidates. Its first important triumph was in the municipal election of Philadelphia in May, 1854, when Judge Conrad, candidate of the Whigs and secret candidate of the Know-Nothings, was elected Mayor by an overwhelming majority.

The Democrats lost a large number of their ablest men on the slavery issue, provoked to defection by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and it was evident that the party would be divided in the next national campaign; but the various elements of opposition were even more incongruous and had little prospect of anything approaching the unity necessary to succeed. Pierce, like Fillmore, Polk, and Tyler, was a candidate for re-election, but failed disastrously in his own convention after wielding the power of his position to the uttermost, and his administration ended with the country rent by sectional feuds and gravely threatened with fraternal war.

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.