Mr. Stanford had prospered so well that in 1855 he purchased the business of his brothers in Sacramento, and went East to bring his wife to the Pacific Coast. He studied his business carefully. He made himself conversant with the statistics of trade, the tariff laws, the best markets and means of transportation. He read and thought, while some others idled away their hours. He was deeply interested in the new Republican party, which was then in the minority in California. He believed in it, and worked earnestly for it. When the party was organized in the State in 1856, he was one of the founders of it. He became a candidate for State treasurer, and was defeated. Three years later he was nominated for governor; "but the party was too small to have any chance, and the contest lay between opposing Democratic factions." Mr. Stanford was to learn how to win success against fires and political defeats. A year later he was a delegate at large to the Republican National Convention; and instead of supporting Mr. Seward, who was from his own State of New York, he worked earnestly for Abraham Lincoln, with whom he formed a lasting friendship. After Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated, Mr. Stanford remained in Washington several weeks, at the request of the president and Secretary Seward, to confer with them about the surest means of keeping California loyal to the Union. Mr. Blaine says of California and Oregon at this time: "Jefferson Davis had expected, with a confidence amounting to certainty, and based, it is believed, on personal pledges, that the Pacific Coast, if it did not actually join the South, would be disloyal to the Union, and would, from its remoteness and its superlative importance, require a large contingent of the national forces to hold it in subjection. "It was expected by the South that California and Oregon would give at least as much trouble as Kentucky and Missouri, and would thus indirectly, but powerfully, aid the Southern cause." In the spring of 1861 Mr. Stanford was again nominated by the Republicans for governor. Though he declined at first, after he had consented, with his usual vigor, earnestness, and perseverance, with faith in himself and his fellow-men as well, he and his friends made a thorough and spirited canvass; and Mr. Stanford received 56,036 votes, about six times as many as were given him two years before.