The great contest of 1856 was coming on. A President was to be chosen. The relations of the sections were more strained every day. The elections of 1854 had emboldened the antislavery men to form the Republican party, and to put out, as their candidate, John C. Fremont, "pioneer and pathfinder," who had saved California to the Union. Fremont was not a statesman, but a hero of the kind who dazzled men, and was thought to be especially available as a presidential candidate. "Free soil, Free men, Fremont" was the cry, and it was evident that the Abolitionists had swept all the wavering Whigs into their lines and would make a determined fight. The American party nominated Millard Fillmore, and the Democracy, with a wealth of material and a non-sectional following, wheeled into line. President Pierce was willing to succeed himself. Stephen A. Douglas, who had rushed into the convention of 1852 with such reckless dash to put aside "the old fogies" of the party, was an avowed candidate. His championship of the Kansas-Nebraska bill had made him a favorite in the South, although it injured his chances at the North. It is not a little remarkable that Douglas, whose candidacy had the effect of setting aside Buchanan for Pierce in 1852, should afterward have been the means of turning down Pierce for Buchanan. James Buchanan of Pennsylvania had just returned from London, where he had served with dignity as American Minister. Free from recent animosities, he entered the field, fresh and full of prestige. He was nominated for President on the fifth day of the Democratic Convention, Georgia casting her vote for him. The Cincinnati platform adopted this plank: "_Resolved_: That we recognize the right of the people of the Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly expressed will of a majority of the actual residents, and whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a Constitution, either with or without domestic slavery, and to be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with all the other States."