The crushing Republican defeat received in the person of Wilmot occurred on the very eve of the financial distress of 1857. The Democratic canvass had been made while there was yet no suspicion of impending panic and revulsion,--made indeed with constant boasts of the general prosperity and with constant ascription of that prosperity to the well-defined and long-continued policy of the Democratic party. From that time the Democratic party became embarrassed in Pennsylvania. With a tariff of their own making, with a President of their own choice, with both branches of Congress and every department of the government under their control, a serious disaster had come upon the country. The promises of Democratic leaders had failed, their predictions had been falsified, and as a consequence their strength was shattered. The Republicans of Pennsylvania, seeing their advantage, pressed it by renewed and urgent demands for a protective tariff. On the other issues of the party they had been hopelessly beaten, but the moment the hostility to slave-labor in the Territories became identified with protected labor in Pennsylvania, the party was inspired with new hopes, received indeed a new life. It was this condition of public opinion in Pennsylvania which made the recognition of the protective system so essential in the Chicago platform of 1860. It was to that recognition that Mr. Lincoln in the end owed his election. The memorable victory of Andrew G. Curtin, when he was chosen governor by a majority of thirty-two thousand, was largely due to his able and persuasive presentation of the tariff question, and to his effective appeals to the laboring- men in the coal and iron sections of the State. But for this issue there was in fact no reason why Curtin should have been stronger in 1860 than Wilmot was in 1857. Indeed, but for that issue he must have been weaker. The agitation over the repeal of the Missouri Compromise had somewhat subsided with the lapse of years: the free- State victory in Kansas was acknowledged and that angry issue removed; while the Dred Scott decision, failing to arouse popular resentment at the time it was pronounced, could hardly be effective for an aggressive canvass three years later. If Governor Curtin could have presented no other issue to the voters of Pennsylvania, he would undoubtedly have shared the fate which Wilmot met when he had these anti-slavery questions as his only platform. Governor Curtin gave a far greater proportion of his time to the discussion of the tariff and financial issues than to all others combined, and he carried Pennsylvania because a majority of her voters believed that the Democratic party tended to free-trade, and that the Republican party would espouse and maintain the cause of protection. PENNSYLVANIA'S INFLUENCE IN 1860.