The result was a victory for the conservatives, or "reactionaries," as we should perhaps say. The solid South voted for Buchanan; and Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, and California were found in the same column. Fremont received the support of a solid East and all the Northwest except the States just mentioned. The fear of radicalism and the distrust of men of great wealth everywhere had defeated the young Republicans; the returns showed that the Democrats had polled 200,000 more votes than in 1852, and there was no reason to believe that the 874,000 which had been cast for Fillmore would not in the end be given to the conservative Democrats in preference to the sectional Republicans. There was no chance for the enthusiastic followers of Seward and Chase unless the majority party could be broken into factions, and this a wise and able Democratic leadership would avoid. Strangely Buchanan formed his Cabinet without consulting Douglas, so far as can now be ascertained. No friend of his was appointed to high office, yet the support of the Northwest was the one condition of continued success. In the foreign policy the new Administration made no change. A part of northern Mexico and all of Cuba were still coveted and, till the outbreak of the Civil War, efforts were made to obtain both. Howell Cobb, of Georgia, was the master spirit of the Cabinet, and Jefferson Davis was the Administration leader in the Senate. The Supreme Court, composed of seven pro-Southern members as against two anti-slavery men, undertook to give a _coup de grace_ to the quarrel about slavery in the Territories. The Missouri Compromise had never been passed upon by the court. Now a case came before the august tribunal which gave opportunity for the judges to say whether slavery could be prohibited by federal authority in the public domain. Dred Scott, a slave belonging to a Missouri master, had been carried into Minnesota and there held in bondage. He sued for his freedom on the ground that slavery was unlawful in free territory, under the Compromise. The case was before the court nearly a year before the judges gave out their opinion that Scott was not a citizen of the United States, and that, therefore, he could not sue in the federal courts. The case was dismissed. But the judges granted a rehearing of the case, and in March, 1857, hoping to assist the country to a peaceful solution of the slavery problem, gave out a so-called _dictum_, which it had been the custom of the court occasionally to submit to the public.[9] In this document the judges said that the negro was property, and that as such the Federal Government must protect it in the Territories. This was the Calhoun doctrine, and the South rejoiced immoderately; the Republicans now began to realize that the courts were in alliance with the slave-power, and they were forced to attack the most sacred political institution in the country.