Donellson, for Vice President. When the convention nominating these gentlemen, laid upon the table, a resolution, declaring, "That the convention should nominate no man for President and Vice President, who was not in favor of interdicting the introduction of slavery into territory North of 86° 80", by Congressional action;" about fifty delegates withdrew from the convention, and gave their influence for Fremont and Dayton.

The republican convention, nominating Fremont and Dayton, placed itself distinctly and squarely on the great principle of American freedom so emphatically asserted in the Declaration of Independence, and declared, "That with our republican Fathers, we believe 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 it was the object of the Federal Government to secure these rights to all persons, within its exclusive jurisdiction, and the convention denied the right of Congress, a territorial Legislature, or any individual, or association of individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States, and declared that it was the right and duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories, these, twin relics of barbarism, poligamy, and slavery.

Then followed one of the most animated, and closely contested political campaigns known in the history of the repub lic. Up to the time of the October State elections, the success of the republican party seemed very probable. The democratic party, howeyer, succeeded in carrying, by small majorities, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, and this virtually, settled the contest. Buchanan received 172 electoral votes, Fremont, 114; and Fillmore, the vote of the State of Maryland. The republican vote was largely increased, by the outrages upon Northern feeling, in the offensive and inhuman enforcement of the fugitive slave law.

Two incidents occurred, during the year, and before the Presidential election, calculated to inflame the feelings of he free States, and strikingly illustrative of the character of slavery and the barbarism produced by it.

One morning, in January, 1856, two families of slaves escaped from Kentucky, and flying across the Ohio river, on the ice, they found refuge in the house of a poor negro. They were followed, traced, overtaken, and breaking open the door, a scene burst upon the eyes of the pursuers, which exhibits slavery as it was, before the war. In one corner of the room, lay a beautiful child, nearly white, bleeding to death, with its throat cut. In au adjoining room, was the mother of the bleeding child, Margaret Garner, with two other wounded children, with the bloody knife in her hand, seeking to take their lives, desiring to kill all her children rather than they should be taken back to slavery.

They were all arrested, and the living taken back to Kentucky-sent South, and all trace of them lost in that hell of slavery existing in the Gulf States. This mother, who thus sought liberty for her children in death, was a beautiful mulatto, twenty-three years of age, of good character; she said she had determined to kill all her children, and then herself, rather than go back to slavery.

The other incident, to which allusion has been made, was the attack upon Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, by Preston Brooks, a member of Congress from South Carolina. Mr. Sumner had made an eloquent speech, on the Kansas question, exhibiting the barbarism of slavery, and had spoken, with some severity of Butler, of South Carolina, a relative of Brooks. Mr. Brooks, with Keitt, and other abettors, stole into the Senate Chamber, approached Sumner from behind, while seated, writing at his desk, knocked him to the floor, and continued to beat him, while insensible until his rage was thoroughly satisfied.

The House of Representatives censured, did not expel Brooks. He resigned and was reëlected without opposition. His constituents lauded the "chivalric act!" Sumner's real assassin was slavery! He has lived to see that assassin after striking at the life of the Nation, and at last, thoroughly arousing it-crushed beneath that Nation's manhood and power.

There were, during this canvass, many threats, by leading men in the slave States, that in case Fremont should be

elected, the slave States would secede from the Union. Little consideration, or attention was given to these threats; they were regarded as idle gasconade, only meant to influence

voters.

The struggle between freedom and slavery, still went on. The slaveholders, elated with their triumph in the election of Buchanan, were now confident of success. The friends of freedom, so far from being discouraged by Fremont's defeat, became conscious of their power, and nerved themselves for still greater efforts. The contest of 1856 being over, they did not disband their forces and lay down their arms, but prepared for success in 1860. . Old party issues and parties disappeared, and slavery extension became the vital issue. Very few, however, if any, doubted that the contest would be settled by peaceful agencies, and that the decision of the ballot box would be acquiesced in, or if not, would be appealed for new trial to the next election, as was ever the American custom.

Mr. Lincoln's opposition to slavery, became more and more intense with time, and the development of its cruelties. Writing to a friend in 1855, he said, "I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down, caught, and carried back to their stripes and unrequited toil." Seeing, in a steamboat, going down the Ohio, a dozen slaves shackled together with irons, he said, "That sight was a continual torment to me, and I see something like it every time I travel the Ohio, or any other slave border."

It was in the campaign of 1856, that no longer embarrassed by party, but standing on the platform of freedom, with which his whole soul sympathised, he exclaimed, with prophetic enthusiasm, "We will, hereafter, speak for freedom, and against slavery, as long as the Constitution guarantees free speech; until everywhere, on this wide land, the sun shall shine, and the rain shall fall, and the wind shall blow upon no man who goes forth to unrequited toil.”

Ah! how little did Lincoln think, when on the prairies of Illinois, he uttered that noble sentiment, that in less than eight years, his voice should utter the potential word of

"emancipation," from the date of which, thereafter, "no man should go forth to unrequited toil."

In March, 1857, Mr. Buchanan was inaugurated and organized his cabinet; Lewis Cass was made Secretary of State, Howell Cobb, of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury; John B. Floyd, of Virginia, Secretary of War; Isaac Toucey, of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy; Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, Secretary of the Interior; Aaron V. Brown, of Tennessee, Postmaster General; Jeremiah S. Black, of Pennsylvania, Attorney General.

The contest for the possession of Kansas, between freedom and slavery, still went on. The free-State men, after seeing Kansas repeatedly invaded by armed men from Missouri, the polls taken possession of, a legislature elected by non-resid ents, and the acts of such a Legislature recognized by the Federal officials, refused to participate in these mock elections, and calling a convention of the actual settlers, the people elected delegates, which met at Topeka, adopted a free-State Constitution, submitted it to the people, and it was almost unanimously adopted. They then proceeded to elect officers under it. This brought the contending parties into direct collision, and civil war menaced Kansas. Congress, in the winter of 1856, had appointed an investigating Committee consisting of William A. Howard, of Michigan, John Sherman, of Ohio, and M. Oliver, of Missouri, which, after full investigation, reported, that every election held under the auspices of the United States officials, had been controlled, not by actual settlers, but by residents of Missouri, and that every officer, in the territory, owed his election to non-residents.

The people's officers, elected under the Topeka Constitution, had been arrested and the Legislature dispersed under orders of the President, by United States regular troops. In January, 1858, a body, calling itself the Legislature of Kansas, elected by fraud, pretended to submit to a vote of the people, a Constitution, called from the place where the Legislature had met, the Lecompton Constitution. The law by which this was submitted to a vote, contained a provision, that all votes should he "for the Constitution with slavery;

or for the Constitution without slavery;" and yet the Constitution itself recognized slavery, and contained a provision restricting the Legislature from interfering with slavery then in the territory, before 1864!

The people, by a vote of 10,226, against, to less than 200, for, this Constitution, expressed their opinion of the trick, and yet Mr. Buchanan had the shameless effrontery to urge upon Congress, the admission of Kansas under this Lecompton swindle! It was by such disgraceful means that the statesmen, so called, of the slave States, sought to force slavery upon Kansas.

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise was fatal to the supremacy of the slave power, and the attempt to force slavery upon Kansas, and surreptitiously to introduce her into the Union as a slave State, under the lead of Buchanan, shattered the democratic party, and contributed largely to the triumph of the republican or free-soil party of 1860.

Douglas had the sagacity to see whither the extreme course of the administration was tending, and the courage to resist it. He led the opposition in the Senate to the Lecompton Constitution, and thereby atoned to some extent, for his instrumentality in the overthrow of the Missouri Compromise.

He presented, in February, 1858, the remonstrance of the Governor and State officers elect, of Kansas, elected under the Topeka Constitution, against its admission under the Lecompton Constitution. In the debate on this question, Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, said the people of Kansas had thrown a majority of over 10,000 votes against this very Constitution. That the great question through all the Kansas struggle had been, slavery, or no slavery. The leading idea of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was to make Kansas a slave State. This was denied by Mr. Douglas, but was reiterated by Mr. Fessenden.

A passage occurred in this debate between Mr. Fessenden and Jefferson Davis, of curious interest. Mr. Davis expressed his concurrence not only with the message of the President, but his hearty approbation of the high motives that actuated him when he wrote it. Apparently looking forward to the separation of States, he held that a Senator, while sitting in