But Buchanan triumphed. The baleful interposition of Know-Nothingism stood in the way of that union of forces which the situation demanded, and was thus chiefly responsible for the Republican defeat. The old Whigs who had so recently stepped from their "finality" platform, could not be unitedly rallied, and the Democratic bolters were only half converted. In my own State the opposition to the Democracy repudiated even the name Republican, and entered the field as "the People's party." It was a combination of weaknesses, instead of a union of forces. All the Fillmore Know- Nothings and Silver-Grey Whigs of the State were recognized as brethren. At least one man on the State ticket, of which Oliver P. Morton was the head, was a Fillmore man, while both Fillmore and anti-Fillmore men had been chosen as delegates to Philadelphia and electors for the State. The political managers even went so far as to suppress their own electoral ticket during the canvass, as a peace-offering to old Whiggery and Know-Nothingism, while the admission of Kansas as a free State was dealt with as the sole issue, and border ruffian outrages and elaborate disclaimers of "abolitionism" were the regular staple of our orators, who openly declared that the Republican party was a "white man's party." Anti- slavery speakers like Clay and Burlingame were studiously kept out of Southern Indiana, where the teachings of Republicanism were especially needed, and Richard W. Thompson, then the professed champion of Fillmore, but in reality the stipendary of the Democrats, traversed that region on the stump, denounced the Republicans as "Abolitionists," "disunionists," and "incendiaries," and was everywhere unchallenged in his course. Similar tactics, though not so deplorably despicable, prevailed in several of the other States, giving unmistakable evidence of the need of a still further and more thorough enlightenment of the people as to the spirit and aims of slavery. In the light of these facts, I was not at all cast down by the defeat of Fremont. He was known as an explorer, and not as a statesman. If he had succeeded, with mere politicians in his cabinet, a Congress against him, and only a partially developed anti-slavery sentiment behind him, the cause of freedom would have been in fearful peril. The revolution so hopefully begun might have been arrested by half-way measures, promoting the slumber rather than the agitation of the truth, while the irritating nostrums of Buchanan Democracy, so necessary to display the abominations of slavery, would have been lost to us. The moral power of the canvass for Fremont was itself a great gain, notwithstanding the cowardice of some of its leaders. The Republican movement could not now go backward, and with a probation of four years to prepare for the next conflict, unembarrassed by the responsibilities of power, and free to profit by the blunders and misdeeds of its foe, it was pretty sure of a triumph in 1860.