V.

CONVENTION AND CAMPAIGN OF 1856.

First Republican National Convention-Nomination of Fremont and Dayton with a Strong Platform--A Spirited Campaign With Ardent Hopes of Success-The October Elections Have a Depressing Effect-In November Buchanan is Elected by Narrow Margins in the Middle States-The Election Considered a Moral Triumph for the Republicans, and a Sure Indication of Future Success-An Exciting and Vigorously Conducted Campaign in Michigan--The Result a Decisive and Enduring Triumph-The Old School Democracy of the Peninsular State In Its Death Throes.

By 1856 the Anti-Slavery men of the North had enough in common to bring them together in National Convention. On February 22d of that year the first National Republican meeting was held at Pittsburg, although it did not assume all the functions of a convention, and no nominations were made. Subsequently a call was issued for the Convention that met in Philadelphia on the 17th of June. This shared somewhat in the spontaneousness of the Michigan gathering two years earlier. No settled rule had been adopted for sending the delegates and there was no fixed ratio of representation. All the Free States were represented, together with the border States of Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky. The delegates met as members of a new party, and represented all former shades of Anti-Slavery opinion, Abolitionists, Free Soilers, Free Democrats and Whigs.

William H. Seward was the most conspicuous man of the party and probably might have been nominated for President, but declined to have his name presented, preferring to take his chance later. Salmon P. Chase, who was then Governor of Ohio, was also a favorite of the party, but did not apparently, see much hope of success. At that time the Whig element of the Convention was favorable to

the nomination of Judge McLean, of the Supreme Court, but the young men were caught with the dash, and spirit, and fame of John C. Fremont, of California, who on the first ballot received 359 votes to 196 for John McLean, of Ohio.

An informal ballot was taken for a candidate for Vice-President, in which William L. Dayton, of New Jersey, received 259 votes, Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, 110; N. P. Banks, of Massachusetts, 46; David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, 43, and a large number of others scattered among Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts; Jacob Collamer,

tions.

JOHN C. FREMONT.

of Vermont; Preston King, of New York; S. C. Pomeroy, of Kansas; Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts; Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky; Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio; Wm. F. Johnston, of Pennsylvania, and William Pennington, of New Jersey.

It was an illustrious array of men to be counted as candidates for the second place on a ticket. Judge Dayton, Sumner, Collamer and King, had all served with distinction in the United States Senate, besides having held other public posi

Lincoln had a high standing at the Western bar, and was already known as one of the most vigorous and effective speakers against slavery aggression. Banks had been Speaker of the House; Wilmot, who was famous because of the Proviso that bore his name, was President Judge of a Pennsylvania Judicial District; Clay was well known as a Kentucky Free Soiler, who stoutly maintained and advocated principles that were generally unpopular in the State; Giddings was the famous Ohio Abolitionist, and Pomeroy was one of the men who went from Massachusetts to Kansas to aid in the work

of the Emigrant Aid Society. Mr. Dayton had such a preponderance of votes that the choice fell upon him without a formal ballot.

The Convention was in session three days, with Henry S. Lane as President. It was made up largely of aggressive young men, who knew that they were laying the foundation for the future upbuilding of a great and successful party.

There was a flavor of Westernism about the man selected as Permanent Chairman of this body. Henry S. Lane, of Crawfordsville, Indiana, a gallant officer during the Mexican War, at one time. one of the leading Whigs in the West, and after that one of the founders of the Republican party, was at this time the most popular man in his State, but his was not a figure that would adorn an Eastern drawing room. As he came forward to take the platform he was the victim of some noticeable ridicule. His hair and whiskers were not of the latest cut, and he wore jeans clothing not very new, and with a pen tail coat. The following picture of him was given by a newspaper correspondent at the time.

WILLIAM L. DAYTON.

"He stood forth on the platform, a man about six feet high, marvelously lean, his front teeth out, his complexion between a sunblister and the yellow fever, and his small eyes glittering like those of a wildcat. The New Yorkers, near whose delegation I sat, were first amused and then delighted. He went in' and made the most astounding speech ever heard in these parts. He smacked his fist horribly at the close of every emphatic period, 'bringing down the house' with every lick, in a tremendous outburst of screams, huzzas

and stamping-Western all over." But he stirred the multitude as with a thousand sharp sticks. From a ridiculed 'thing' he became an idol. When the speech was concluded and he assumed charge of the Convention, he continued his 'Westernisms,' as the New Yorkers called them, by filling his mouth with tobacco, placing one leg over the table behind which he sat. He put the vote and made his decisions in the most off-hand way imaginable, without rising, and infusing into everything a spirit of peculiar humor that was irresistible."

on:

Mr. Lane, on taking the chair, assured the Convention, as "friends of freedom and friends of free men," that the time, the place and the occasion—the anniversary of Bunker Hill-and the vicinity of Independence Hall, all conspired to make the hour memorable. He went "It is now a struggle for free men, free thought and free labor, and I hope it will meet with hearty response. This day inaugurates a new era in American politics. It inaugurates the sovereignty of the people, the rule of man, the resurrection of the North. There is, to my mind, a great significance in these mighty upheavals of the masses. A sense of common danger has brought together men hitherto divided politically, because they owed no responsibility equal to that they owed to freedom. I followed the lead of the glorious Clay, of Kentucky; but since the Nebraska bill has passed, my alliance to old party ties slept in the grave of the patriot Clay. We look for the day that the sun shall shine on no slave-North or South. We look for the speedy admission of Kansas as a Free State. There is nothing revolutionary in that. There is authority for it, and necessity for it. Two short years ago peace reigned throughout the land. The Compromise Measures were quietly submitted by the cold and cruel calculation of heartless demagogues. The ambition of Stephen A. Douglas opened up afresh the agitation. It was brought on by no action of ours, but I trust God that we will meet it as men. "Scenes have been enacted in Kansas that have had no parallel since the days when the Goths and Vandals overran Italy. Whether that administration was more fool or knave let the muse of history determine. They were made felons by the Draconian laws there. They recollected the history of Barber, who for daring to proclaim the equality of all men, was struck down in cold blood, and whose widow now roams a raving maniac around her prairie home. Such a rebellion as theirs was sanctioned by God and man. The laws of Kansas were vitiated by force and fraud, and had no binding

effect on any man. The Bible of truth was even ostracised by the Kansas Legislature, for so long as we believed in the immortality of the soul, we must believe that glorious revelation was an Anti-Slavery document.

"Why does the Democratic party disturb the Missouri Compromise? I know not, and yet with unparalleled effrontery they proceeded to pass resolutions at Cincinnati to discontinue the further agitation of slavery. Their promise was like Dead Sea fruits-tempt the eye, but turn to ashes on the lips.''

The Michigan Delegation to this first National Convention were: At Large E. J. Penniman, Fernando C. Beaman, Noyes L. Avery, Thomas J. Drake, Zachariah Chandler, George Jerome. By Districts -First, Kinsley S. Bingham, D. McIntyre, M. A. McNaughton; Second, George A. Coe, Isaac P. Christiancy, Witter J. Baxter; Third, Hezekiah G. Wells, John R. Kellogg, Randolph Strickland; Fourth, Whitney Jones, A. P. Davis and H. B. Shank.

While giving prominence to the paramount issue of slavery in the territories, the Convention at once gave the new organization standing as a party of progress, by taking up new issues. The platform, as finally adopted, was in full as follows:

This convention of delegates, assembled in pursuance of a call addressed to the people of the United States, without regard to past political differences or divisions, who are opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, to the policy of the present Administration, to the extension of slavery into free territory; in favor of admitting Kansas as a Free State; of restoring the action of the Federal Government to the principles of Washington, and who purpose to unite in presenting candidates for the office of President and Vice-President, do resolve as follows:

RESOLVED, That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence, and embodied in the Federal Constitution, is essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions, and that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the states, and the Union of the states, shall be preserved.

RESOLVED, That with our Republican fathers, we hold it to be a self-evident truth that all men are endowed with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that the primary object and ulterior design of our Federal Government were to secure these rights to all persons within its exclusive jurisdiction; that as our Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our National territory, ordained that no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, it becomes our duty to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it for the purpose of establishing slavery in any