still Democratic. Of these, Pennsylvania was
the most important. Buchanan was the choice of the Northern delegates
because he was a Pennsylvanian and because, abroad on a foreign mission,
he had escaped all responsibility for Kansas. On the first ballot, he
led with 135 votes, Pierce was second with 122, and Douglas had but 33,
but as before he rose as the balloting proceeded. Pierce's vote fell
away; after the fourteenth ballot, his name was withdrawn. On the
fifteenth, Buchanan had 168, Douglas 118. Richardson, Douglas's manager,
thereupon arose and read a dispatch from his chief directing his friends
to obey the will of the majority and give Buchanan the necessary two
thirds. Once more, the prize escaped him, though he had bid for it with
his country's peace.

But the platform proclaimed the principle of his famous law to be "the
only sound and safe solution of the slavery question." He was at the
head of his party as Clay had for so many years headed the Whigs. He had
the substance of power, the reality of leadership, whosesoever the
trappings and the title might be. Every move in Congress was made with a
view to its effect in the campaign, and it was he who arranged the
issues. Toombs, of Georgia, offered an enabling act of admirable
fairness, intended to secure the people of Kansas in their right to have
such a state constitution as they might prefer, and Douglas adopted it
and held the Senate for it against the House bill to admit Kansas with
the Topeka constitution. No agreement could be reached, for the
Republicans in their platform had declared for the prohibition of
slavery in all the Territories. "Bleeding Kansas" was their war-cry, and
Douglas charged, not without reason, that they meant to keep Kansas
bleeding until the election. The House went so far as to attach a rider
to the army appropriation bill forbidding the President to employ United
States troops in aid of the territorial authorities, and would not
permit the appropriations to pass in their ordinary form until Congress
adjourned and the President was forced to call an extra session.

But the Republican party had not yet gathered into its ranks all those
who in their hearts favored its policy. The reality of civil war in
Kansas brought a sobering sense of danger to the Union which worked
contrary to the angry revolt against the slave power, and Buchanan's
appeal to the lovers of the Union in both sections was successful. He
was elected, and the