who put them in nomination voted for Fremont and Dayton. Stockton and Raynor being withdrawn from the contest, their friends generally transferred their support to Fillmore and Donelson.

Mr. Buchanan accepted the nomination in a letter fully indorsing the Democratic platform, indeed almost sinking his personality in becoming its representative and embodiment. In a conversation with Albert G. Brown, a Mississippi Senator, a few days after the convention, he so fully indorsed the Southern side of the questions at issue as to extort from that Senator the remark that he was "as worthy of Southern confidence and Southern votes as ever Mr. Calhoun was." Mr. Fillmore was in Europe when his nomination was made. He soon afterward returned, and, in a speech at Albany, took intensely Southern, not to say revolutionary, ground. He predicted the most serious consequences, should the Republicans succeed, and he justified the South in regarding such success as sufficient warrant for violence. "If this sectional party succeeds," he said, "it leads inevitably to the destruction of this beautiful fabric, reared by our forefathers, cemented by their blood, and bequeathed to us as a priceless inheritance."

A canvass inaugurated by such a preparation, by such scenes of violence and blood in Kansas and on the Senate floor, by such utterances of party platforms and party candidates, and by such sectional demonstrations of Southern leaders, could not but be earnest and in the highest degree animated. The Republicans, not hampered by a Southern wing with its prescription and proscription, and " running without weights," sought freedom for others all the more heartily because they had become free themselves. As never before it was a conflict of principles, not of political economy and commercial greed alone, but in the higher range of morals and religious obligation. For questions of tariffs, banks, internal improvements, and the like, were substituted those of philanthropy, true patriotism, and a wise statesmanship; of human rights and the higher law. Never had the nation been taken up to so high a plane of feeling, thought, and action; never had it been confronted with questions of such pregnant interest and importance.

As never before had such use been made of weapons drawn from the armory above, so never had the pulpit and the religious and reformatory press lent such aid in a political struggle.

There were, too, other subsidiary influences that helped to swell the volume of Republican thought and feeling. Among them were the inflexible purposes and persistent labors of the American Antislavery Society and its affiliated associations. Though their members cast no votes, and they discarded all political action, they contributed to the result aimed at by the new party of freedom. By orators and presses, meetings and conventions, they made constant warfare on the slave-system, and kept before the people the woes of the slave and the machinations of the Slave Power. During what might be termed the terrible" seven years' war," beginning with the compromises of 1850, including the abject surrender of the great parties in 1852, the merciless enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, the Kansas-Nebraska legislation of 1854, the assault on Mr. Sumner and the border-ruffian policy in Kansas in 1856, they denounced, with unsparing words, this systematic attack upon the rights of man and the integrity of the nation. Their independence of sect or party contributed to this result. Absolved from all responsibility for either, they analyzed, perhaps, more closely, and described more faithfully, the evil they, so fiercely condemned and so fearlessly exposed.

But many who were convinced by their arguments against slavery could not adopt their proposed measures for its removal. Their diagnosis of the disease they were forced to admit, but they were not persuaded to accept the remedy prescribed. But, while their own numbers were not increasing, perhaps diminishing, they were impregnating the North with antislavery ideas and increasing the number who abhorred and hated slavery and were in a waiting posture to welcome just such an agency as the Republican party promised. Equally pronounced in its hostility to the vile system, it, at the same time, was proposing a remedy that seemed less revolutionary, more reformatory, practical, promising, besides being less in conflict with their feelings of patriotism for the country and of reverence for the church.

66

Another potent influence which doubtless entered largely into the canvass had been the publication and wide-spread perusal of Uncle Tom's Cabin." It was both a revelation and a summons. It revealed what existed here, and, as with trumpet blast from another world, it called upon the people to repent and purge themselves from the great iniquity. It was as if a vast panorama had been suddenly unrolled, on which the gifted artist had portrayed with vivid colors the scenes of cruelty and shame, of suffering and sorrow, to which slavery gave rise, and those of noble daring and Christian selfsacrifice, to effect and aid escape therefrom, and these pictures had been burned into the popular mind and heart by the very fervor of the genius that inspired and wrought them. Nor can it be doubted that many minds, in perusing that work, had found the needful preparation for the arguments and appeals of Republican presses and speakers that were so soon to follow, and that many votes cast for Fremont were but the rich fruitage of seed so widely broadcast by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Nor was its influence confined to this country. It crossed the seas. Translated into an almost incredible number of languages, and circulated in unprecedented numbers in every country, city, and court of Europe, it excited like abhorrence of the system it so vividly portrayed, kindled sympathy with efforts for its extirpation, and evoked hearty goodwill and carnest good wishes for the new party of freedom.

On the other hand, the arguments which the supporters of Buchanan and Fillmore most frequently employed were those of alarm and menace. The most direful consequences were predicted and the most belligerent threats were fulminated everywhere, designed and well adapted to affright the timid, and especially to disturb the moneyed interests. Senators Slidell and Toombs declared that, in case of Fremont's election, the Union would, and ought to be, dissolved. Senator Butler said: "I shall advise my legislature to go at the tap of the drum." Mr. Keitt declared that "adherence to the

Union is treason to liberty." Indeed, in every form and with frantic emphasis did the leading men and presses of the South utter threats like these.

Governor Wise was conspicuous in that canvass for his zealous support of the Democratic ticket, because it maintained, he contended, the rights of the South. At a ratification meeting in Richmond, soon after the nomination, he unhesitatingly declared, in a speech of marked ability, purpose, and boldness, that Mr. Buchanan had ever been true to the interests of the South, "as reliable as Mr. Calhoun himself." Alarmed, in view of the possibility, if not probability, of the election of Fremont, he sent a circular, about the middle of September, to the Democratic governors of the Southern States, proposing a meeting at Raleigh on the 13th of October, to take into consideration the condition of the country. To this circular Governor Bragg of North Carolina replied, under date of the 19th. He expressed his dread of a disastrous result in the approaching Presidential election, concurred in the propriety of the meeting, and consented to be present. Governor Adams of South Carolina, under date of the 23d, replied that he would cheerfully meet the men invited at Raleigh, and pledged South Carolina to "joyously follow" in any measure that would bring security to the South. On the 24th, Governor Ligon of Maryland wrote that he thought the proposed meeting premature; that it would not be attended with beneficial results; and that it would injuriously affect the election of Buchanan. Four days afterward he wrote that such a collection of governors of Southern States would be regarded as preliminary to some decided action in the event of a certain contingency, and would injure the Democratic party in Maryland. Governor Winslow of Alabama responded on the 26th, and stated that if the meeting took place he would not be absent. On the 11th of October, he again wrote that he would second and support any line of policy that might be decided upon. He thought, if the governors of Virginia and North Carolina would meet, the Southern States would adopt any policy suggested, if it was only "bold enough"; if not, he said, they had only "to sink down in abject acquiescence until made to move like the terrapin, with burning coals on his back." Governor Broome of Florida wrote, on the 7th, that the objects of the meeting met his hearty concurrence,

and that it would give him great pleasure to meet "the executives of the Southern sisterhood in conference." The people of Florida, he thought, would stand shoulder to shoulder with the Southern States on the Georgia platform of 1851. Under date of 9th of October, Governor Wickliffe of Louisiana, who had telegraphed that he would attend the meeting, wrote that subsequent reflection had convinced him that the proposed meeting would "militate against the union of the South." He thought the meeting would be considered as having for its object the election of Buchanan, and would be considered solely as a Democratic movement. Governor Wickliffe, as did some of the other governors, wrote that the exclusion of the governors of Kentucky and Missouri, representing the American party, might be construed into a declaration that they were untrue to the South, and would tend to imbitter them against any recommendation that might be made.

The governors of Virginia and South Carolina met the governor of North Carolina at Raleigh. The governors of the other Southern States either refused or were unable to be present. But no action whatever was taken. The object of this movement at the time was generally understood to be either a dismemberment of the Union or resistance within it, and, as such, it tended to alarm timid and conservative men at the North. But Governor Wise, in a letter to Mr. Wilson, under date of November 5, 1873, after declaring that he had always been "a friend of the Union," writes: "My anxious desire and most zealous motive was to do all I could to prevent intestine war and guard against disunion; and, if that could not be done, to provide for the safety and protection of Virginia in a war which might come, and which I was sure would come unless a convention of all the States could be assembled to avert its dangers." Saying that it was his main object "to call a national convention in the Union," but that "it had too many enemies of the Union to contend with," he added: "I shall die in the conviction that if a convention of all the States could have been then held, that war would have been averted."

These threats and movements exerted no little influence