The Anti-Slavery faction, organized in 1848, under the name of “the Free Soil Party,” and in the ensuing election returned its candidate, Martin Van Buren, to the Presidency, sent Salmon P. Chase and Charles Sumner to the Senate, and a large number of its friends to the House of Representatives. The rapid settlement of the West added to the complication. California and Oregon in their territorial organization excluded slavery, and the former applied for admission as a State on an Anti-Slavery basis. A fierce debate followed in Congress, the Southern representatives insisting on the organization of California, Oregon, Utah, and New Mexico without slavery restrictions. The Free Soil party demanded, not only the admission of California, but the organization of the other territories with slavery absolutely prohibited. The dispute ended in a compromise, proposed by Henry Clay, in which California was admitted as a free State, no restriction enforced in Utah or New Mexico, and slavery prohibited in the District of Columbia, and provisions made for the return of fugitive slaves from all Northern States. The compromise was so agreeable to the majority of the people that for a time the Anti-Slavery agitation was greatly decreased. In 1855 the Free Soil party was absorbed into the Republican party, destined to attain such power in later days. It was the clause relating to fugitive slaves which renewed the abolition sentiment in the North. For years previous to this time escaped slaves had found plenty of friends among the Northerners to help them to Canada, and in time the organization for aid and secretion of fugitive blacks became more complete, and very few slaves who succeeded in crossing the border line were ever recovered by their masters. Massachusetts even passed a law to secure fugitive slaves trial by jury, and Pennsylvania passed a law against kidnapping. A decision was finally made in the Supreme Court which gave to the owners of a slave the right to recapture him without process of law, but this availed little against the growing sentiment against all slavery. In 1850 a Fugitive Slave law was passed which was so unjust in its measures that it left little hindrance to the kidnapping of free negroes to be held as slaves in the South. This law aroused the greatest indignation, and backed up the Abolitionists with a crowd of ardent sympathizers, where previously they had been regarded as wild radicals. In December, 1853, the Territory of Nebraska was proposed for organization. An amendment to the bill was offered which should abrogate the Missouri Compromise and permit the citizens of the Southern States to take and hold their slaves within any of the new Territories or States. The bill was reported back from the committee, modified to propose the formation of two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. At the end of a contest lasting four months, the bill was carried, with the measure which had been in existence for thirty-five years nullified and