The first national convention of the Republican party was held at Pittsburg on the 22d of February, 1856, under a call issued by the chairmen of the Republican committees of Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Michigan. It was attended by delegates representing twenty-seven States and territories, and provided for the national organization of the Republican party by creating a general executive committee and calling a convention, to meet at Philadelphia on June 17, to nominate a presidential ticket. Michigan was represented at Pittsburg by a delegation of eighteen, headed by Zachariah Chandler, and including Kinsley S. Bingham, Jacob M. Howard, and Fernando C. Beaman. Mr. Chandler was also a member of the committee which reported the plan for the national organization of the Republican party, and he participated briefly in the debates of that important gathering. The Michigan convention to elect delegates to Philadelphia was held at Ann Arbor, on March 8, 1856, and was addressed by Mr. Chandler and other prominent Republicans. He was a member of the Philadelphia convention, acting as an alternate for Charles T. Gorham, and, after Fremont was nominated, formally promised that the electoral vote of Michigan should be given for the ticket. He was there made the member for his State of the first Republican National Committee. The Michigan delegation at Philadelphia originally supported Mr. Seward for the presidency, but finally joined in the movement to nominate General Fremont on the first ballot. For the vice-presidency the majority of the delegation supported William L. Dayton, but Mr. Chandler, with four others, voted for Abraham Lincoln. In the following campaign Mr. Chandler was among the most active of the Republican leaders. He aided liberally in the work of organizing the party throughout the State, and spoke at Detroit several times, and at Kalamazoo, Lapeer, Port Huron, Adrian, Coldwater, and other of the important cities and towns of Michigan. He also held one joint discussion with Alpheus Felch, at Olivet, on October 16. The tone of his public utterances in 1856 will appear from these extracts from his speech at Kalamazoo (on August 27) before an immense mass-meeting, which was also addressed by Abraham Lincoln and Jacob M. Howard: The Republicans of Michigan stand by the constitution, and when their defamers proclaim that they are a disunion party, as they do so often, they publish what they know to be a falsehood.... We are determined to stand by the constitution in all its parts, and, more than that, to make our adversaries stand by it in all and every part.... Our opponents have ignored this constitution with but a single exception. And what is that exception? It is the key to their character and their principles. In this whole instrument they acknowledge but one clause, and that is the right to reclaim fugitive slaves from their hard-earned freedom!