e political movements
leading up to secession.

Between the two great parties--Republican and Democratic--the most
important issue was the slavery question.

The Republican party, born of the slavery agitation, in its platform
(1856) denied

"The authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, of any
individual or association of individuals, to give legal existence
to slavery in any Territory of the United States.

"Declared that the Constitution confers on Congress sovereign power
over the Territories of the United States for their government,
and that in the exercise of this power it is both the right and
the duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin
relics of barbarism--Polygamy and Slavery."

On the other hand, the Democratic party in 1856, fresh from the
contest in Congress over the Nebraska Bill and the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise, denied the right of Congress to exclude slavery
from the Territories, and declared it

"The right of the people of all the Territories, including Kansas
and Nebraska . . . to form a Constitution, with or without domestic
slavery, and be admitted into the Union."

There were other but minor issues discussed in 1856. John C.
Fremont was nominated by the Republicans and James Buchanan by the
Democrats. Douglas failed of the Presidential prize through violent
antagonism from the South, especially from Jefferson Davis, Wm. L.
Yancey, Robert Toombs, and other leading pro-slavery statesmen.
They distrusted him, though he had led them to victory in 1854 in
repealing the 36 deg. 30' restriction of slavery, and in throwing open,
as we have seen, the Nebraska territorial empire to the influx of
slaves. He was patriotic, and hence could not be depended on to
take the next step towards forcing slavery into the Territories
and to favor a dissolution of the Union.

Buchanan, a pliant tool, was elected by a plurality vote over
Fremont and Fillmore, the candidate of the American party. Fremont
carried, with good majorities, all the free States save Indiana,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and California.

The popular discussion of the slavery question in the campaign was
thorough, memorable, exciting, educating, and, though resulting in
defeat to the anti-slavery party, it marked the trend of public
sentiment, and clearly foreshadowed that it would soon triumph.

The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 still further elucidated to
the masses of the people the