Webster, like Clay, did not survive to witness the next great discussion in Congress on the slavery question, which resulted in overturning much that was supposed to have been settled; nor did they live to hear thundered from the supreme judicial tribunal of the Union the appalling doctrines of the Dred Scott decision. Webster died October 24, 1852. Benton lived to condemn the great tribunal for this decision in most vehement terms. He died April 10, 1858. But few of the leading participants of the 1850 debates lived to witness the final overthrow of slavery. Lewis Cass, however, who, though a Democrat, generally followed and supported Clay in his plan of compromise, not only lived to witness the birth of the new doctrine of "Squatter Sovereignty" (and to support it), but to hear that slavery was, according to our Supreme Court, almost national; then to see disunion in the _live tree;_ then war; then slaves proclaimed free as a war measure; then disunion overthrown on the battle-field; then restoration of a more perfect Union, wherein slavery and involuntary servitude was forbidden by the Constitution.(78) In the succeeding Presidential election (1852) the two great parties endorsed the late action of Congress in relation to the Territories and slavery. The Whig platform declared the acquiescence of the party in all its acts: "The act known as the Fugitive Slave Law included. . . . as a settlement in principle and substance of the dangerous and exciting questions which they embrace. . . . We will maintain them and insist on their strict enforcement." On this platform General Winfield Scott was nominated for the Presidency. The Democratic platform of the same year, having first denied that Congress had power under the Constitution to interfere with slavery in the States, declared also that the party would "abide by and adhere to a faithful execution of the acts known as the Compromise measures settled by the last Congress,--the act for reclaiming fugitives from service or labor included." Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, a subordinate officer (Brigadier- General) under Scott in Mexico, of no special renown, but a polite and respectable gentleman, was nominated and elected on this platform by a decided vote; Scott carrying only Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The "Free-Soil" party nominated John P. Hale of New Hampshire on a platform repudiating the Compromise measures, declaring against the aggressions of the slave power and for: "No more slave States, no slave territory, no nationalized slavery, and no national legislation for the extradition of slaves. That slavery is a sin against God, and a crime against man, which no human enactment or usage can make right; and that Christianity, humanity, and patriotism alike demand its abolition. "That the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is repugnant to the Constitution, to the principles of the common law," etc.