esentatives in Congress; and we shall see how the more explicit
resolution was again even more flagrantly violated by the Democratic
National Administration and party under President Buchanan.

For the time, however, these well-rounded phrases were especially
convenient: first, to prevent any schism in the Cincinnati Convention
itself, and, secondly, to furnish points for campaign speeches;
politicians not having any pressing desire, nor voters the requisite
critical skill, to demonstrate how they left untouched the whole brood
of pertinent queries which the discussion had already raised, and
which at its next national convention were destined to disrupt and
defeat the Democratic party. For this occasion the studied ambiguity
of the Cincinnati platform made possible a last cooeperation of North
and South, in the face of carefully concealed mental reservations, to
secure a presidential victory.

It is not the province of this work to describe the incidents of the
national canvass, but only to record its results. At the election of
November, 1856, Buchanan was chosen President. The popular vote in the
nation at large stood: Buchanan, 1,838,169; Fremont, 1,341,264;
Fillmore, 874,534. By States Buchanan received the votes of fourteen
slave-States and five free-States, a total of 174 electors; Fremont
the vote of eleven free-States, a total of 114 electors; and Fillmore
the vote of one slave-State, a total of eight electors.[4]

In the campaign which preceded Mr. Buchanan's election, Mr. Lincoln,
at the head of the Fremont electoral ticket for Illinois, took a
prominent part, traversing the State in every direction, and making
about fifty speeches. Among the addresses which he thus delivered in
the different counties, it is interesting to read a fragment of a
speech he made at Galena, Illinois, discussing the charge of
"sectionalism," the identical pretext upon which the South inaugurated
its rebellion against his Administration four years afterwards:

You further charge us with being disunionists. If you mean that it
is our aim to dissolve the Union, I for myself answer that it is
untrue; for those who act with me I answer that it is untrue. Have
you heard us assert that as our aim? Do you really believe that
such is our aim? Do you find it in our platform, our speeches, our
conventions, or anywhere? If not, withdraw the charge.

But you may say that though it is not our aim, it will be the