The intense excitement and strong opposition which followed the first announcement of the purpose to repeal the compromise in a great measure subsided after that act was accomplished, and he found extreme difficulty in the succeeding months in persuading a sufficient number of men to join in his enterprise to form the first colony. The Know-Nothing frenzy absorbed the public mind so fully that other considerations were almost entirely excluded, and the Free Soil vote of 1854 dwindled to a few thousands, the Republican candidate for governor himself deserting his party and voting with the native Americans. The Know-Nothing organization had controlled the state for three years, and the frenzy had seized the public mind to such an extent that no man who aspired to public office had a chance of election unless he was affiliated with that party. Every member of Congress belonged to it, and it has been commonly said that Henry Wilson and other prominent office-holders of that time were elected upon that platform. The national Know-Nothing party did not agitate the slavery question, but maintained that Congress ought not to legislate on the question of slavery, which was regulated by the statutes of the various states. In 1856 the Republicans of the Massachusetts congressional district in which Worcester is situated came to the front, but, feeling that they stood no show of winning at the pending elections, made alliances with the Know-Nothing party, whereby the offices were to be divided, and Col. Alexander Dewitt made an agreement with Henry Chapin that he would not run against him. At the last moment, however, Governor Gardiner sent word that he must make the run against Chapin. It was at this crisis that Charles White, a party manager, nominated Eli Thayer for Congress, and took a carriage and went to the Oread to notify him of his nomination. Mr. Thayer was warmly greeted in the convention and, although it was but five days before the election, he announced his determination to stump the district and called for means of transportation to the various towns and villages. During the five days he made on an average four speeches a day. At the close of the campaign Dr. Joseph Sargent said to Mr. Thayer that no man could do what he had done and live, but he replied that he was prepared to undertake the same ordeal again in the same cause. During this campaign he would speak at Clinton in the morning, at Leominster at noon, at Ashburnham in the afternoon and at Fitchburg in the evening, and it was in this way that he covered the entire Worcester district in the short space of five days. The result of this bitter contest was most gratifying to Mr. Thayer, who won by a vote of nearly two to one. The election was in November, 1856, but Mr. Thayer did not take his seat until the December of the following year.