ckets" were
adopted in Wisconsin and Vermont, where the name Republican was used,
and in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.

The success of the new party in Wisconsin and Michigan in 1854, and its
yet greater success in 1855, led the chairmen of the Republican state
committees of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Wisconsin
to issue a call for an informal convention at Pittsburg on February 22,
1856. At this meeting the National Republican party was formed, and from
it went a call for a national nominating convention to meet (June 17,
1856) at Philadelphia, where John C. Fremont and William L. Dayton were
nominated.

The Free-soilers had joined the Republicans and so disappeared from
politics as a party.

The Whigs, or "Silver Grays," met and endorsed Fillmore.

The Democrats nominated James Buchanan and John C. Breckinridge and
carried the election. The Whigs and the Know-nothings then disappeared
from national politics.

[Illustration: James Buchanan]

%395. James Buchanan, Fifteenth President; the "Bred Scott
Decision."%--When Buchanan and Breckinridge were inaugurated, March
4, 1857, certain matters regarding slavery were considered as legally
settled forever, as follows:

1. Foreign slave trade forbidden.

2. Slave trade between the states allowed.

3. Fugitive slaves to be returned.

4. Whether a state should permit or abolish slavery to be determined by
the state.

5. Squatter sovereignty to be allowed in Kansas and Nebraska, Utah and
New Mexico territories.

6. The people in a territory to determine whether they would have a
slave or a free state when they made a state constitution.

Now there were certain questions regarding slavery which were not
settled, and one of them was this: If a slave is taken by his master to
a free state and lives there for a while, does he become free?

To this the Supreme Court gave the answer two days after Buchanan was
inaugurated. A slave by the name of Dred Scott had been taken by his
master from the slave state of Missouri to the free state of Illinois,
and then to the free soil of Minnesota, and then back to the state of
Missouri, where Scott sued for his freedom, on the ground that his
residence on free soil had made him a free man. Two questions of vast
importance were thus raised:

1. Could a negro whose ancestors had been sold as slaves become a
citizen of one of the states in the Union? For unless Dred Scott was