e other occurrences demand mention. In May, 1854, the seizure in
Boston of Anthony Burns, as an escaped slave, caused a riot in which the
court-house was attacked by a mob, one of the assailants was killed, and
the militia were called out. Other like seizures elsewhere aroused the
indignation of people who, whatever were their abstract theories as to
the law, revolted at the actual spectacle of a man dragged back from
freedom into slavery. May 22, 1856, Preston S. Brooks strode suddenly
upon Charles Sumner, seated and unarmed at his desk in the
senate-chamber, and beat him savagely over the head with a cane,
inflicting very serious injuries. Had it been a fair fight, or had the
South repudiated the act, the North might have made little of it, for
Sumner was too advanced in his views to be politically popular. But,
although the onslaught was even more offensive for its cowardice than
for its brutality, nevertheless the South overwhelmed Brooks with
laudation, and by so doing made thousands upon thousands of Republican
votes at the North. The deed, the enthusiastic greeting, and the angry
resentment marked the alarming height to which the excitement had risen.

The presidential campaign of the following summer, 1856, showed a
striking disintegration and re-formation of political groups. Nominally
there were four parties in the field: Democrats, Whigs, Native Americans
or Know-Nothings, and Republicans. The Know-Nothings had lately won some
state elections, but were of little account as a national organization,
for they stood upon an issue hopelessly insignificant in comparison with
slavery. Already many had gone over to the Republican camp; those who
remained nominated as their candidates Millard Fillmore and Andrew J.
Donelson. The Whigs were the feeble remnant of a really dead party, held
together by affection for the old name; too few to do anything by
themselves, they took by adoption the Know-Nothing candidates. The
Republican party had been born only in 1854. Its members, differing on
other matters, united upon the one doctrine, which they accepted as a
test: opposition to the extension of slavery. They nominated John C.
Fremont and William L. Dayton, and made a platform whereby they declared
it to be "both the right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in the
Territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery;" by
which vehement and abusive language they excited the bitter resentment
of the Southern De