2. But the issues were not settled, and in 1854 the organization of Kansas and Nebraska reopened the struggle.
3. The Kansas-Nebraska bill and the contest over Kansas split both the Whig party and the Democratic party, and by the union of those who left them, with the Free-soilers, the Republican party was made, 1854-56.
4. In 1857 the Supreme Court declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, and opened all territories to slavery.
5. In 1858 this decision and other slavery issues were debated by Lincoln and Douglas.
6. This debate made Lincoln a national character, and in 1860 he was elected President by the Republican party.
[Illustration: SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE MOUNTAINS, USED BY BROWN AS AN ARSENAL.
Contemporary drawing.]
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.