The quarrel between Northern and Southern Democrats kept growing fiercer; and the party broke up at the convention for 1860 into two sectional factions with antagonistic platforms and candidates. Douglas still led the opposition to those Southerners who maintained that the nation ought to protect slavery in the territories. A third ticket was adopted by neutrals who had been Whigs or Know Nothings, and who now professed no principle but a vague patriotism. The Republicans remained pledged to exclude slavery from the territories; but they condemned John Brown, and said nothing against the Fugitive Slave Law or in favour of emancipation in the District of Columbia. Their leaders had favoured free trade in 1857; but the platform was now made protectionist, in order to prevent Pennsylvania from being carried again by the Democrats. Illinois and Indiana were secured by the nomination of Lincoln. He was supported enthusiastically by the young men throughout the North: public meetings were large and frequent; torchlight processions were a prominent feature of the campaign. The wealth and intellect of the nation, as well as its conscience, were now arrayed against slavery; but the clergy are said to have been less active than in 1856. Lincoln had the majority in every Northern State, except New Jersey, California, and Oregon. He also had 17,028 votes in Missouri, and 8042 in other slave States which had sent delegates to the Republican convention. Not one of the Southern electors was for Lincoln; but he would have become President if all his opponents had combined against him. VI. The South had nothing to fear from Congress before 1863, but she had lost control of the North. Kansas would certainly be admitted sooner or later; and there would never be another slave State, for the Republican plan for the territories was confirmed by their geographical position. The free States might soon become so numerous and populous as to prohibit the return of fugitives, abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, repeal the clause of the Constitution which allowed representation for slaves, and forbid their transportation from State to State. It was also probable, in the opinion of Salmon P. Chase, afterwards Secretary of the Treasury, and of many leading Southerners, that under Federal patronage there might soon be a majority for emancipation in Maryland, Kentucky, and other States (see _Life of Theodore Parker_, by Weiss, vol. ii., pp. 229, 519). The vote of thanks given to Parker in 1855 by the hearers of his anti-slavery lecture in Delaware, showed that abolitionism would eventually become predominant in the Senate, as it was already in the House of Representatives.