s these men," said Scott, "who were
aware of the position on the frontier, that urged me on to achieve
something that would add to the future honour of our country." New
York City received him with one of the largest ovations ever witnessed
up to that time. He avoided politics in his speeches, insisting that
he did not come to solicit votes. But he did not thereby help his
cause or escape ridicule. Indeed, the ill-advised things said and
done, created the impression that obtained thirty-two years later
after the tour of James G. Blaine.

Though the Democrats at first accepted Franklin Pierce as they had
received James K. Polk, coldness and distrust gradually disappeared.
At Tammany's Fourth of July celebration, the presence of the prominent
leaders who bolted in 1848 gave evidence of the party's reunion. The
chief speaker was John Van Buren. Upon the platform sat John A. Dix,
Preston King, and Churchill C. Cambreling. Of the letters read, one
came from Martin Van Buren, who expressed pleasure that "the
disturbing subject of slavery has, by the action of both the great
parties of the country, been withdrawn from the canvass." Among the
editors who contributed most powerfully to the Free-soil movement,
William Cullen Bryant now supported Pierce on the theory that he and
the platform were the more favourable to freedom.[419] John Van
Buren's spacious mind and his genius for giving fascination to
whatever he said convulsed his audience with wit and thrilled it with
forceful statements. The country, he declared, was tired of the
agitation of slavery, which had ceased to be a political question. It
only remained to enforce in good faith the great compromise. He
asserted that trade was good and the country prosperous, and that the
Democratic party had gained the confidence of the people because it
was a party of pacification, opposed to the agitation of slavery,
insistent upon sacredly observing the compromises of the Constitution,
and certain to bring settled political conditions.

[Footnote 419: "The argument of the _Post_, that the Democratic
candidate and platform were really more favourable to liberty than the
Whig, was somewhat strained; the editor failed to look the situation
squarely in the face. He was, however, acting in perfect harmony with
the prominent New York Democrats who had, four years previously,
bolted the regular nomination. Salmon P. Chase, although still a
Democrat, would not support Pierce, but gave h