But the abolition forces had the defects of their qualities, and their main difficulty really arose from the stimulus given to a thin fanaticism. There followed, in the train of the nobler thinkers and orators, the ``Fool Reformers,''--sundry long-haired men and short-haired women, who thought it their duty to stir good Christian people with blasphemy, to deluge the founders of the Republic with blackguardism, and to invent ever more and more ingenious ways for driving every sober-minded man and woman out of the anti-slavery fold. More than once in those days I hung my head in disgust as I listened to these people, and wondered, for the moment, whether, after all, even the supremacy of slaveholders might not be more tolerable than the new heavens and the new earth, in which should dwell such bedraggled, screaming, denunciatory creatures. At the next national election the Whigs nominated General Scott, a man of extraordinary merit and of grandiose appearance; but of both these qualities he was himself unfortunately too well aware; as a result the Democrats gave him the name of ``Old Fuss and Feathers,'' and a few unfortunate speeches, in one of which he expressed his joy at hearing that ``sweet Irish brogue,'' brought the laugh of the campaign upon him. On the other hand the Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce; a man greatly inferior to General Scott in military matters, but who had served well in the State politics of New Hampshire and in Congress, was widely beloved, of especially attractive manners, and of high personal character. He also had been in the Mexican War, but though he had risen to be brigadier-general, his military record amounted to very little. There was in him, no doubt, some alloy of personal with public motives, but it would be unjust to say that selfishness was the only source of his political ideas. He was greatly impressed by the necessity of yielding to the South in order to save the Union, and had shown this by his utterances and votes in Congress: the South, therefore, accepted him against General Scott, who was supposed to have moderate anti- slavery views.