4. The slavery question continued to vex the nation. In 1857 the Supreme Court of the United States, after hearing the cause of Dred Scott, formerly a slave, decided _that negroes are not and can not become citizens_. Thereupon, in several of the free States, PERSONAL LIBERTY BILLS were passed, to defeat the Fugitive Slave Law. In the fall of 1859, John Brown of Kansas, with a party of twenty-one daring men, captured the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and held his ground for two days. The national troops were called out to suppress the revolt. Thirteen of Brown's men were killed, two made their escape, and the rest were captured. The leader and his six companions were tried by the authorities of Virginia, condemned and hanged. [Sidenote: Election of Abraham Lincoln.] 5. In the presidential canvass of 1860 the candidate of the Republican party was Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. The distinct principle of this party was opposition to the extension of slavery. In April the Democratic convention assembled at Charleston; but the Southern delegates withdrew from the assembly. The rest adjourned to Baltimore and chose Douglas as their standard-bearer. There, also, the delegates from the South reassembled in June, and nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. The American party chose as their candidate John Bell of Tennessee. The contest resulted in the election of Mr. Lincoln. 6. The leaders of the South had declared that the choice of Lincoln for the presidency would be a just cause for the dissolution of the Union. A majority of the cabinet, and a large number of senators and representatives in Congress, were advocates of disunion. It was seen that all the departments of the government would shortly pass under the control of the Republican party. President Buchanan was not himself a disunionist; but he declared himself not armed with the constitutional power to prevent secession by force. [Sidenote: The Secession of Southern States.] 7. On the 17th of December, 1860, a convention met at Charleston, and after three days passed a resolution _that the union hitherto existing between South Carolina and the other States was dissolved_. The sentiment of disunion spread with great rapidity. By the first of February, 1861, six other States--Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas--had all passed ordinances of secession. Nearly all the senators and representatives of those States resigned their seats in Congress and gave themselves to the disunion cause. 8. In the secession conventions a few of the speakers denounced disunion as bad and ruinous. In the convention of Georgia, Alexander H. Stephens delivered a powerful oration in which he defended the theory of secession, but urged that _the measure was impolitic, unwise, disastrous_. [Sidenote: Confederation of the South.]