Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1: From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860Blaine, James Gillespie
History
Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1: From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860
Blaine, James Gillespie
United States -- History; United States -- History -- 1865-1898
Before the nomination of Buchanan and Breckinridge another Presidential
ticket had been placed in the field. The pro-slavery section of
the American party and the ghastly remnant of the Whigs had presented
Mr. Fillmore for the Presidency, and had associated with him Andrew
Jackson Donelson of Tennessee as candidate for the Vice-Presidency.
On the engrossing question of the day Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Fillmore
did not represent antagonistic ideas, and between them there could
be no contest to arouse enthusiasm or even to enlist interest in
the North. The movement for Fillmore afforded a convenient shelter
for that large class of men who had not yet made up their minds as
to the real issue of slavery extension or slavery prohibition.
The Republican party had meanwhile been organizing and consolidating.
During the years 1854 and 1855 it had acquired control of the
governments in a majority of the free States, and it promptly called
a national convention to meet in Philadelphia in June, 1856. The
Democracy saw at once that a new and dangerous opponent was in the
field,--an opponent that stood upon principle and shunned expediency,
that brought to its standard a great host of young men, and that
won to its service a very large proportion of the talent, the
courage, and the eloquence of the North. The convention met for
a purpose and it spoke boldly. It accepted the issue as presented
by the men of the South, and it offered no compromise. In its
ranks were all shades of anti-slavery opinion,--the patient
Abolitionist, the Free-Soiler of the Buffalo platform, the Democrats
who had supported the Wilmot Proviso, the Whigs who had followed
Seward.
NOMINATION OF JOHN C. FREMONT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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