nnsylvania, there can be no
doubt that Mr. Lincoln would have been defeated. An adverse result
in Pennsylvania in October would certainly have involved the loss
of Indiana in November, besides California and Oregon and the four
votes in New Jersey. The crisis of the national campaign was
therefore reached in the triumph of Governor Curtin in the State
election which preceded by four weeks the direct choice of President.
It would be difficult to compute the possible demoralization in
the Republican ranks if Pennsylvania had been lost in October.
The division among the Democrats was a fruitful source of encouragement
and strength to the Republicans, but would probably have disappeared
with the positive assurance of success in the national struggle.
Whether in the end Douglas or Breckinridge would have been chosen
President is matter of speculation, but it is certain that Mr.
Lincoln would have been defeated. The October election of Pennsylvania
was for so long a period an unerring index to the result of the
contest for the Presidency, that a feeling almost akin to superstition
was connected with it. Whichever party carried it was sure, in
the popular judgment, to elect the President. It foretold the
crushing defeat of John Quincy Adams in 1828; it heralded the
disaster to Mr. Clay in 1844; it foredoomed General Cass in 1848.
The Republicans, having elected their candidate for governor in
1854 by a large majority, confidently expected to carry the State
against Mr. Buchanan in 1856. But the Democratic party prevailed
in the October election, and the supporters of Fremont at once
recognized the hopelessness of their cause. The triumph of Governor
Curtin was the sure precursor of Mr. Lincoln's election, and that
very fact added immeasurably to his popular strength in the closing
month of the prolonged and exciting struggle.

In reviewing the agencies therefore which precipitated the political
revolution of 1860, large consideration must be given to the
influence of the movement for Protection. To hundreds of thousands
of voters who took part in that memorable contest, the tariff was
not even mentioned. Indeed this is probably the fact with respect
to the majority of those who cast their suffrages for Mr. Lincoln.
It is none the less true that these hundreds of thousands of ballots,
cast in aid of free territory and as a general defiance to the
aggressions of the pro-slavery leaders of the South, would have
been ut