Pennsylvania was the pivotal State in the contest, and Colonel Forney was chairman of the Democratic State Committee. He was thoroughly familiar with the political situation, and greatly impaired his health by his exhaustive efforts to save Buchanan in his home State. His relations with Buchanan were of the closest and most confidential nature, and each implicitly trusted the other. Buchanan knew Forney’s ability in the management of a great political battle, and there was no concealment between them as to the reward Forney should receive if Buchanan succeeded. Forney’s ambition was to continue in journalism, and it was not only understood, but the assurance voluntarily given to Forney by Buchanan, that if Buchanan became President, Forney should conduct the national organ in Washington and receive the Senate printing. What was then known as the Senate printing was an abuse that had grown up from small to large proportions until it became a fortune to any man who received it during the period of an administration. Gales and Seaton, of the _National Intelligencer_, had enjoyed it for many years, and when Democratic administrations became more distinctly partisan the favoritism was continued and the profits magnified. It was deemed a necessity for each administration to have an organ, and it was accepted in those days as the Democratic oracle of the nation. By making Forney the editor of the administration organ at Washington with the Senate printing, his highest ambition in his journalistic career would have been gratified, with ample fortune added. So intimate were Buchanan and Forney, that Forney’s family spent part of the summer at Wheatland, where Forney would occasionally tarry for a day’s rest and to consult with his chief. Both parties were very confident of carrying the State in October, but Forney outgeneralled the leaders of the Union ticket by his masterful manipulation of Philadelphia, and the Buchanan State ticket was successful in October by 3500 majority. Had the Buchanan State ticket been defeated, Buchanan’s defeat for President would have been clearly foreshadowed, as it would doubtless have made a successful union on the electoral tickets in New Jersey, Indiana, and Illinois, as had already been done in Pennsylvania. Notwithstanding the loss of Pennsylvania in October, the friends of Fremont and Fillmore made desperate efforts to carry the State in November, and so well did they fight their battle that Buchanan’s majority in the State over the combined vote of Fremont and Fillmore was only 1025. The Fremont and Fillmore people believed that they had been defrauded out of the October election in Pennsylvania, and Forney was denounced with extreme bitterness that had lost none of its intensity in the Senatorial fight of 1857, when the resentments of the opposition made Forney’s defeat for Senator possible in a Democratic Legislature.