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.
Maine39,08067,3793,325—8—
New Hampshire32,78938,345422—5—
Vermont10,56939,561545—5—
Massachusetts39,240108,19019,626—13—
Rhode Island6,68011,4671,675—4—
Connecticut34,99542,7152,615—6—
New York195,878276,007124,604—35—
New Jersey46,94328,33824,1157——
Pennsylvania230,710147,51082,17527——
Delaware8,0043086,1753——
Maryland39,11528147,460——8
Virginia89,70629160,31015——
North Carolina48,246——36,88610——
South Carolina[15]——————8——
Georgia56,578——42,22810——
Alabama46,739——28,5529——
Florida6,358——24,1957——
Louisiana22,164——20,7096——
Texas31,169——15,6394——
Arkansas21,910——10,7874——
Missouri58,164——48,5249——
Tennessee73,638——66,17812——
Kentucky74,64231467,41612——
Ohio170,874187,49728,126—23—
Michigan52,13671,7621,660—6—
Indiana118,67094,37522,38613——
Illinois105,34896,18937,44411——
Wisconsin52,84366,090579—5—
Iowa36,17043,9549,180—4—
California53,36520,69136,1654——
Totals1,838,1691,341,264874,5341741148

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.