a little more than one hundred and
fifty-seven thousand, and not a single electoral vote. This showed
a marvelous anti-slavery progress, considering the age of the
movement, the elements it forced into combination, and the difficulties
under which it struggled into life; and no one could misinterpret
its significance.

CHAPTER VIII.
PROGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM.
The Dred Scott decision--The struggle for freedom in Kansas--
Instructive debates in Congress--Republican gains in the Thirty-
fifth Congress--The English bill--Its defeat and the effect--
Defection of Douglas--Its advantages and its perils--Strange course
of the New-York Tribune and other Republican papers--Republican
retreat in Indiana--Illinois Republicans stand firm, and hold the
party to its position--Gains in the Thirty-sixth Congress--Southern
barbarism and extravagance--John Brown's raid--Cuba and the slave
trade--Oregon and Kansas--Aids to anti-slavery progress--The
Speakership and Helper's book--Southern insolence and extravagance
--Degradation of Douglas--Slave code for the Territories--Outrages
in the South--Campaign of 1860--Charleston convention and division
of the Democrats--Madness of the factions--Bell and Everett--
Republican National Convention and its platform--Lincoln and Seward
--Canvass of Douglas--The campaign for Lincoln--Conduct of Seward
--Republican concessions and slave-holding madness.

The Republicans, however, were sorely disappointed by their defeat;
but this second great victory of slavery did not at all check the
progress of the anti-slavery cause. It had constantly gathered
strength from the audacity and recklessness of slave-holding
fanaticism, and it continued to do so. On the 6th of March, 1857,
the Supreme Court of the United States harnessed itself to the car
of slavery by its memorable decision in the case of Dred Scott,
affirming that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the
Territories, and, inferentially, that the Constitution carried with
it the right to hold slaves there, even against the will of their
people. The point was not before the court, and the opinion of
Chief Justice Taney was therefore purely extra-judicial. It was
simply a political harangue in defense of slavery. It created a
profound impression throughout the free States, and became a powerful
weapon in the hands of Republicans. It was against the whole
current of adjudications on the subject, and they denounced it as
a vile carica