as he himself said, he could travel from the Atlantic
coast to Chicago in the light of the fires. Thousands of Whigs and
Free-soil Democrats deserted their parties which had sanctioned or at
least tolerated the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, declaring that the startling
measure showed an evident resolve on the part of the planters to rule
the whole country. A gage of defiance was thrown down to the
abolitionists. An issue was set even for the moderate and timid who had
been unmoved by the agitation over slavery in the Far South. That issue
was whether slavery was to be confined within its existing boundaries or
be allowed to spread without interference, thereby placing the free
states in the minority and surrendering the federal government wholly to
the slave power.

=The Rise of the Republican Party.=--Events of terrible significance,
swiftly following, drove the country like a ship before a gale straight
into civil war. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill rent the old parties asunder
and called into being the Republican party. While that bill was pending
in Congress, many Northern Whigs and Democrats had come to the
conclusion that a new party dedicated to freedom in the territories must
follow the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Several places claim to be
the original home of the Republican party; but historians generally
yield it to Wisconsin. At Ripon in that state, a mass meeting of Whigs
and Democrats assembled in February, 1854, and resolved to form a new
party if the Kansas-Nebraska Bill should pass. At a second meeting a
fusion committee representing Whigs, Free Soilers, and Democrats was
formed and the name Republican--the name of Jefferson's old party--was
selected. All over the country similar meetings were held and political
committees were organized.

When the presidential campaign of 1856 began the Republicans entered the
contest. After a preliminary conference in Pittsburgh in February, they
held a convention in Philadelphia at which was drawn up a platform
opposing the extension of slavery to the territories. John C. Fremont,
the distinguished explorer, was named for the presidency. The results
of the election were astounding as compared with the Free-soil failure
of the preceding election. Prominent men like Longfellow, Washington
Irving, William Cullen Bryant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and George William
Curtis went over to the new party and 1,341,264 votes were rolled up for
"free labor, free speech, free men, free Kan