together against the common foe.

The Democratic candidate was James Buchanan of Pennsylvania. He was one
of those men, decent and respectable, who go through a life of
office-seeking and office-holding without a particle of real leadership,
and are forgotten the moment they leave the stage unless circumstance
throws them into a place so responsible as to reveal their glaring
incompetence. He had escaped the odium which Pierce and Douglas had
incurred, through his absence as Minister to England. There he had
distinguished himself chiefly by his part in a conference at Ostend, in
1854,--incited by President Pierce and his Secretary of State, William
L. Marcy of New York,--where he had met Mason of Virginia and Soule of
Louisiana, ministers respectively to France and Spain; and they had
issued a joint manifesto, declaring that the possession of Cuba was
necessary to the peace and security of the United States, and the island
should be obtained from Spain, with her consent if possible but without
it if necessary. This became a recognized article in the Democratic and
Southern policy. The Republican platform of 1856 denounced the Ostend
manifesto, as the doctrine that "might makes right," "the highwayman's
plea." It was left for a latter-day Republican to give to the same
doctrine the politer name of "international eminent domain."

The American or Know-nothing party nominated ex-President Fillmore and
adopted a platform inclining toward the Southern position. There was a
secession of a Northern element, which nominated Banks, but he declined
and supported Fremont. All the opponents of the Republican party laid
stress on its sectional character. Both its candidates (for
vice-president, William L. Dayton of New Jersey), were from the North;
its creed aimed solely at the restriction of the South's peculiar
institution; south of Mason and Dixon's line, it had an electoral ticket
in four States only--Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky--and
cast hardly 1000 votes. But the South itself had so completely
ostracized even the most moderate anti-slavery sentiment that free
political action was impossible. Thus, Professor Hedrick of the
University of North Carolina said in reply to a question that he favored
Fremont for President; and being denounced for this by a newspaper, he
wrote to it a letter, saying in a modest and straightforward way that he
had made no attempt to propagate his views, but he did desire to see the
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