fundamental rule of political faith, an absolute necessity for
avoiding geographical parties. The danger so clearly discerned by
the Father of his Country has now become fearfully apparent in the
agitation now convulsing the nation, and must be arrested at once if
we would preserve our Constitution and our Union from dismemberment,
and the name of America from being blotted out from the family of
civilized nations.
_Resolved_, That all who revere the Constitution and the Union
must look with alarm at the parties in the field in the present
Presidential campaign—one claiming only to represent sixteen Northern
States, and the other appealing mainly to the passions and prejudices
of the Southern States; that the success of either faction must add
fuel to the flame which now threatens to wrap our dearest interests in
a common ruin.
_Resolved_, That the only remedy for an evil so appalling is to
support a candidate pledged to neither of the geographical sections
now arrayed in political antagonism, but holding both in a just and
equal regard. We congratulate the friends of the Union that such a
candidate exists in Millard Fillmore.
_Resolved_, That, without adopting or referring to the peculiar
doctrines of the party which has already selected Mr. Fillmore as a
candidate, we look to him as a well-tried and faithful friend of the
Constitution and the Union, eminent alike for his wisdom and firmness;
for his justice and moderation in our foreign relations; for his
calm and pacific temperament, so well becoming the head of a great
nation; for his devotion to the Constitution in its true spirit; his
inflexibility in executing the laws; but, beyond all these attributes,
in possessing the one transcendant merit of being a representative
of neither of the two sectional parties now struggling for political
supremacy.
_Resolved_, That, in the present exigency of political affairs,
we are not called upon to discuss the subordinate questions of
administration in the exercising of the constitutional powers of
the Government. It is enough to know that civil war is raging, and
that the Union is imperilled; and we proclaim the conviction that the
restoration of Mr. Fillmore to the Presidency will furnish the best if
not the only means of restoring peace.
The campaign of 1856 was one of the most desperately fought conflicts
in the history of American politics. In some of the Northern States,
and particularly in Pennsylvania, that had to be carried against
Buchanan in October to give promise of his defeat, the American party,
or the supporters of Fillmore and Donelson, were nearly or quite
as strong as the distinctive Republicans. Both were opposed to the
election of Buchanan, but they were wide apart not only on the slavery
issue, but on the questions of citizenship and religious proscription.
As the contest warmed up the necessity for some sort of union between
these elements was accepted on both sides, and in Pennsylvania,
Illinois, Indiana, and some other States the Americans, Republicans,
and old Whigs united on State tickets. Illinois, while it gave its
electoral vote to Buchanan, elected Colonel Bissell, an antislavery and
anti-Buchanan Democrat, Governor, and in Pennsylvania the Democratic
ticket was successful in October only by a very small majority.
In several of the States they harmonized on an electoral ticket. They
did it by printing two electoral tickets for the two wings of the
opposition. On one ticket the first candidate for elector was John C.
Fremont, and on the other ticket was the name of Millard Fillmore.
The understanding was that if the Union electoral ticket succeeded,
the entire vote, less the one lost by using the names of Fillmore and
Fremont, should be cast for either candidate if thereby he could be
elected, and if such united vote would not elect either candidate the
vote was to be divided between Fillmore and Fremont, as the voters
indicated by the first name at the head of the ticket.
In common with the great mass of conservative Whigs who were at first
greatly disappointed in the nomination of Fremont and the radical
attitude of the new Republican party, I gradually drifted into the
contest because of the offensive deliverances on slavery made by the
Cincinnati platform. I knew Mr. Buchanan personally, and if I could
have obeyed my individual preferences as to a candidate, would have
voted for him. The slavery issue soon became so sharply defined
that the great mass of the Whigs of the North fell in to the support
of Fremont. There was considerable defection of prominent Whigs in
Buchanan’s State, embracing the Reeds, the Ingersolls, the Whartons,
the Randalls, and others of Philadelphia, whose conservative Whig
views, with their great personal respect for Buchanan, influenced them
to support him. Buchanan was not a magnetic man, not a popular man in
the common acceptation of the term, but he was respected by all not
only for his ability, but for his integrity and generally blameless
reputation. He was a very courteous gentleman, but the multitude did
not rush into his arms as it did into the arms of Clay and Blaine, and
it is quite probable that his bachelor life, a destiny given him by a
devotion with tragic end, doubtless made him less genial than he might
have been.
Pennsylvania was the pivotal State in the contest, and Colonel Forney
was chairman of the Democratic State Committee. He was thoroughly
familiar with the political situation, and greatly impaired his health
by his exhaustive efforts to save Buchanan in his home State. His
relations with Buchanan were of the closest and most confidential
nature, and each implicitly trusted the other. Buchanan knew Forney’s
ability in the management of a great political battle, and there was
no concealment between them as to the reward Forney should receive if
Buchanan succeeded. Forney’s ambition was to continue in journalism,
and it was not only understood, but the assurance voluntarily given
to Forney by Buchanan, that if Buchanan became President, Forney
should conduct the national organ in Washington and receive the Senate
printing. What was then known as the Senate printing was an abuse that
had grown up from small to large proportions until it became a fortune
to any man who received it during the period of an administration.
Gales and Seaton, of the _National Intelligencer_, had enjoyed it for
many years, and when Democratic administrations became more distinctly
partisan the favoritism was continued and the profits magnified. It was
deemed a necessity for each administration to have an organ, and it
was accepted in those days as the Democratic oracle of the nation. By
making Forney the editor of the administration organ at Washington with
the Senate printing, his highest ambition in his journalistic career
would have been gratified, with ample fortune added. So intimate were
Buchanan and Forney, that Forney’s family spent part of the summer at
Wheatland, where Forney would occasionally tarry for a day’s rest and
to consult with his chief.
Both parties were very confident of carrying the State in October, but
Forney outgeneralled the leaders of the Union ticket by his masterful
manipulation of Philadelphia, and the Buchanan State ticket was
successful in October by 3500 majority. Had the Buchanan State ticket
been defeated, Buchanan’s defeat for President would have been clearly
foreshadowed, as it would doubtless have made a successful union on the
electoral tickets in New Jersey, Indiana, and Illinois, as had already
been done in Pennsylvania. Notwithstanding the loss of Pennsylvania in
October, the friends of Fremont and Fillmore made desperate efforts
to carry the State in November, and so well did they fight their
battle that Buchanan’s majority in the State over the combined vote of
Fremont and Fillmore was only 1025. The Fremont and Fillmore people
believed that they had been defrauded out of the October election in
Pennsylvania, and Forney was denounced with extreme bitterness that had
lost none of its intensity in the Senatorial fight of 1857, when the
resentments of the opposition made Forney’s defeat for Senator possible
in a Democratic Legislature.
Buchanan, Fremont, and Fillmore each bore themselves with great dignity
during the campaign. Fillmore was not in sympathy with Buchanan, but he
had even less sympathy for Fremont and the radical Republican policy
he represented. Fremont made his home during the contest in New York,
under the strictest orders not to discuss any political question,
either orally or by letter, with any outside of those in charge of his
campaign. Along with several others, I called upon him at his home
some time before the election, simply to pay our respects to the man
we were supporting for President, and he was so extremely cautious
that he evaded the most ordinary expressions relating to the conduct
and prospects of the battle. He impressed me as possessing a stronger
individuality than I had credited him with, and his enforced policy of
silence made him appear as a severely dignified gentleman with strong
intellectual possibilities. But considering the record he made in the
early part of the war, when he had, for the first time, opportunity
to display his abilities, there are few who will not feel that his
election to the Presidency might have been equally disastrous to
himself and to the country.
The battle ended by the election of Buchanan, although Fremont carried
the New England States and New York and the Northwestern Democratic
States with the whirl of the tempest. The following table exhibits the
popular and electoral vote:
══════════════════╤═════════════════════════════╦═════════════════════════════
│ POPULAR VOTE. ║ ELECTORAL VOTE.
├─────────┬─────────┬─────────╫─────────┬────────┬──────────
STATES. │James │ John C. │Millard ║ │ │
│Buchanan,│ Fremont,│Fillmore,║Buchanan.│Fremont.│Fillmore.
│Penn. │ Cal. │N. Y. ║ │ │
──────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────╫─────────┼────────┼──────────
Maine │ 39,080│ 67,379│ 3,325 ║ ―― │ 8 │ ――
New Hampshire │ 32,789│ 38,345│ 422 ║ ―― │ 5 │ ――
Vermont │ 10,569│ 39,561│ 545 ║ ―― │ 5 │ ――
Massachusetts │ 39,240│ 108,190│ 19,626 ║ ―― │ 13 │ ――
Rhode Island │ 6,680│ 11,467│ 1,675 ║ ―― │ 4 │ ――
Connecticut │ 34,995│ 42,715│ 2,615 ║ ―― │ 6 │ ――
New York │ 195,878│ 276,007│ 124,604 ║ ―― │ 35 │ ――
New Jersey │ 46,943│ 28,338│ 24,115 ║ 7 │ ―― │ ――
Pennsylvania │ 230,710│ 147,510│ 82,175 ║ 27 │ ―― │ ――
Delaware │ 8,004│ 308│ 6,175 ║ 3 │ ―― │ ――
Maryland │ 39,115│ 281│ 47,460 ║ ―― │ ―― │ 8
Virginia │ 89,706│ 291│ 60,310 ║ 15 │ ―― │ ――
North Carolina │ 48,246│ ――――――│ 36,886 ║ 10 │ ―― │ ――
South Carolina[15]│ ――――――│ ――――――│ ―――――― ║ 8 │ ―― │ ――
Georgia │ 56,578│ ――――――│ 42,228 ║ 10 │ ―― │ ――
Alabama │ 46,739│ ――――――│ 28,552 ║ 9 │ ―― │ ――
Florida │ 6,358│ ――――――│ 24,195 ║ 7 │ ―― │ ――
Louisiana │ 22,164│ ――――――│ 20,709 ║ 6 │ ―― │ ――
Texas │ 31,169│ ――――――│ 15,639 ║ 4 │ ―― │ ――
Arkansas │ 21,910│ ――――――│ 10,787 ║ 4 │ ―― │ ――
Missouri │ 58,164│ ――――――│ 48,524 ║ 9 │ ―― │ ――
Tennessee │ 73,638│ ――――――│ 66,178 ║ 12 │ ―― │ ――
Kentucky │ 74,642│ 314│ 67,416 ║ 12 │ ―― │ ――
Ohio │ 170,874│ 187,497│ 28,126 ║ ―― │ 23 │ ――
Michigan │ 52,136│ 71,762│ 1,660 ║ ―― │ 6 │ ――
Indiana │ 118,670│ 94,375│ 22,386 ║ 13 │ ―― │ ――
Illinois │ 105,348│ 96,189│ 37,444 ║ 11 │ ―― │ ――
Wisconsin │ 52,843│ 66,090│ 579 ║ ―― │ 5 │ ――
Iowa │ 36,170│ 43,954│ 9,180 ║ ―― │ 4 │ ――
California │ 53,365│ 20,691│ 36,165 ║ 4 │ ―― │ ――
├─────────┼─────────┼─────────╫─────────┼────────┼──────────
Totals │1,838,169│1,341,264│ 874,534 ║ 174 │ 114 │ 8
══════════════════╧═════════╧═════════╧═════════╩═════════╧════════╧══════════
[15] Chosen by Legislature.
A quarrel between Buchanan and Forney was more far-reaching in its
results than can well be estimated by those not entirely familiar
with the beginning and the end of the dispute. During the campaign,
Buchanan, greatly pressed with the increased correspondence that came
to him, asked Forney to send him a competent and trustworthy secretary,
and Buchanan, for the first time, abandoned his uniform policy of
writing all his own letters in clear, beautiful copper-plate style.
Forney sent one of his own assistants to aid Buchanan, and having
charge of Buchanan’s correspondence he became cognizant of the fact
that the Southern leaders were very generally and earnestly demanding
of Buchanan the pledge that Forney should not be made editor of the
administration organ.
Buchanan parried the appeals of the Southern friends for some time,
but finally, knowing that his election depended upon a united South,
they became mandatory, and Buchanan, without advising Forney of the
fact, finally gave his pledge that Forney should not be chosen. The
secretary was indignant at this betrayal of his friend, and quietly
sought Forney, advised him of the fact and expressed his purpose not to
return. Forney required the secretary to go back and perform his duties
and take no note of what had happened. He was greatly disappointed,
as it denied him what was the great ambition of his life, involving
editorial distinction and fortune, but he believed that Buchanan had
yielded to imperious necessity and that he would not be allowed to
suffer from the change.
It was not until after the election that Buchanan informed Forney of
the necessity of making a change in his reward, and Forney proposed
to accept a position in the Cabinet, to which Buchanan would have
willingly consented, but the same intense opposition to Forney as a
Cabinet officer surged against him from the South. It was next proposed
by Buchanan that Forney should take the Berlin mission with a liberal
commercial salary added, but Mrs. Forney peremptorily refused to
entertain it. It was finally agreed that Forney should be elected to
the Senate. The Democrats had a majority of three on joint ballot,
and it was not doubted that any Democrat nominated by the caucus
would be chosen. Henry D. Foster, a very prominent Democrat, who had
been in Congress and who was the Democratic candidate for Governor in
1860, was a member of the House. He was a candidate for Senator, and
doubtless would have been chosen had Forney not been suddenly injected
into the field. It was not until the Legislature was about to meet
that Forney’s candidacy was decided upon. It required very prompt and
positive action to secure the nomination of Forney, and Buchanan, with
all his extreme caution under ordinary circumstances, wrote a letter to
Senator Mott urging the election of Forney. That letter became public
and greatly exasperated the friends of the other candidates, but a
new Democratic administration with the President from the State and
just on the threshold of great political power was able to command the
nomination for Forney, and it was accomplished, but leaving many open
sores.
The Republicans and Americans of the Legislature were smarting under
what they regarded as the fraud that Forney engineered to give the
State to Buchanan, and they were quite willing to join any movement to
defeat him. General Cameron had come into the Republican party in 1856,
and was at the head of the electoral ticket, and he had a very strong
hold upon some old Democratic friends. He proposed to the Republicans
and Americans of the Legislature that if they would give him a united
vote he could command three Democratic votes and be elected. The Union
caucus, as it was called, appointed a committee to whom three Democrats
must be shown and give their pledges to vote for Cameron, and if such
report was made back to the caucus by the committee, without giving the
names of the Democrats who were to vote for Cameron, the Republicans
were pledged to vote unitedly for Cameron on the 1st ballot. The
committee saw Representatives Lebo, Maneer, and Wagonseller, Democrats,
who pledged themselves to vote for Cameron if they could elect him, and
to the surprise of all parties except the very few who understood the
arrangement, Cameron was elected Senator and Forney suffered a most
humiliating defeat.
After Forney’s defeat for Senator, it became much more difficult than
even before for Buchanan to reward him, as he doubtless felt should be
done. Efforts were made to give him a liberal share of the post-office
printing, but Forney and Buchanan were gradually becoming estranged,
and finally Forney decided that he could not harmonize with Buchanan
and his friends, and that he would renew his journalistic career on
independent lines. The result was the establishment of the Philadelphia
_Press_.
The slavery issue speedily divided Douglas and Buchanan, and Forney
had his opportunity. He had suffered much from the proscriptive hatred
of the South, and he became Douglas’s ablest and most enthusiastic
supporter in the North, which brought him into direct antagonism with
Buchanan. From the time that battle began, Forney and Buchanan were
strangers during the remainder of their lives, and no one man did more
to educate the North up to the election of Abraham Lincoln than John W.
Forney.
We are told that the political methods of the present age are greatly
degenerate as compared with the political methods of the old-school
leaders, of which Buchanan was about the last representative in the
White House. It will surprise many of the present day to be told that
Buchanan gave personal attention not only to organize county leaders
in his support for the Presidency, but wrote elaborate letters even to
township leaders. I have in my possession a number of Mr. Buchanan’s
anti-Presidential letters, and I think it due to the truth of history
to give one of them as a foot-note to illustrate the politics of half a
century ago.[16] Perry County, to which the letter refers, is a small
county adjoining Franklin, the birthplace of Buchanan. It had only a
single delegate to the Democratic State Convention, and, considering
Buchanan’s location, he should have been able to command its support
without special effort. The friend to whom he wrote was an Associate
Judge of the county and active in politics, and when it is remembered
that this letter is only one of very many written to a single small
county to gain a single delegate for Buchanan against General Cass, who
lived in a distant State, the political methods employed to reach the
Presidency in that day will be generally accepted as no improvement on
the methods now employed to gain the highest honors of the Republic.
[16] _Private and Confidential._
WHEATLAND, NEAR LANCASTER, 12 DEC., 1851.
MY DEAR SIR: A friend from Cumberland County, who has recently been
in Perry, expresses much doubt about your county and says that unless
strong efforts shall be made, it will go for Cass. I understand
you elect by county meeting; and this mode is not a fair method of
ascertaining public opinion throughout a large county. What can be
done? My enemies perceiving that my prospects are daily becoming
brighter and brighter throughout the Union are now intent upon
producing such an appearance of division at home as they imagine may
deter other States from voting for my nomination. In this point of
view it is important I should carry Perry, if this can be done by
fair and honorable means. Cass, their apparent but not their real
candidate, can now make no show; but they will go for any candidate
against myself. Pennsylvania has now for the first time in her history
an opportunity of furnishing the candidate, should she think proper
to exert her power with a reasonable degree of unanimity. I intend
to write to my friends Black and Steward; but my main reliance is
on yourself. General Fetter and Judge Junkin were formerly my warm
friends—whether they are so now or not I do not know. Are A. B.
Anderson and young McIntire my friends? I think you once told me they
were. I am informed that young Miller is my bitter foe.
Could you make a trip over the county and ascertain the state of
public opinion? I should esteem it a very great favor if you would;
and in that event, I should insist that you shall not spend your own
money in supporting me. This would be both unreasonable and unjust.
If you could pass a few days in this manner, you would confer a favor
upon me which I trust I may some day be able to repay. But you must
not go at all unless at my expense. Your services will place me under
obligations which I shall never forget without expending your own
money for my benefit.
If you should ascertain that the county is against me and cannot be
carried, as the Perry _Democrat_ indicates, then it would be useless
to make the effort. If it can be carried, then we must go to work and
have the proper concert of action to bring my friends to the county
meeting.
Will you let me hear from you soon on this subject, and believe me
ever to be sincerely and gratefully your friend,
JAMES BUCHANAN.
HON. GEORGE BLATTENBERGER.
P.S.—Jos. Bailey, who is a strange, capricious man, is now against me,
though in 1843 he was one of my warmest friends and supporters, as you
will perceive by the address which I send you. What have I done since?
Buchanan entered the Presidency earnestly determined to end the slavery
agitation, but unfortunately he hoped to end it by the unqualified
success of slavery in all of the new Territories and the right of
transit through the free States of slaves as servants. The Dred Scott
decision was foreshadowed in his inaugural address, and he and the
pro-slavery statesmen of that time were confident that the Republican
ebullition of 1856 was a mere tidal wave that would speedily perish,
and that the South would be so strongly entrenched for the defence of
slavery that it could not be successfully assailed. He was elected
by the South; he was the strictest of strict constructionists on all
Constitutional questions, and he naturally sustained the South in going
far beyond what his judgment approved in the efforts to force slavery
into Kansas and Nebraska.
The strength of the slavery sentiment steadily grew under the
aggravations of the pro-slavery men who sought to force slavery into
the new Territories of the West, and it was this continued discussion
and the outrages perpetrated on the people of Kansas and Nebraska
that made the election of a Republican President possible in 1860,
and that finally precipitated the Civil War. Buchanan adhered to the
South until open rebellion was organized by the capture of forts and
arsenals and the organization of a Confederate government, but when he
found himself powerless to restrain the South from armed rebellion, he
reorganized his Cabinet and exhausted his then wasted powers to bring
the South into submission to the Government. He had an aggressively
loyal Cabinet during the last few months of his administration, and
when he retired, generally denounced by the loyal sentiment of the
country as a faithless Executive, he earnestly supported the Government
in every measure necessary to suppress the rebellion and prevent the
dismemberment of the Republic. He died soon after the close of the
war, a thoroughly honest and patriotic public servant, but widely
misunderstood. His revolutionary Kansas-Nebraska policy made the
Republican revolution of 1860 inevitable, and made Abraham Lincoln
President.
THE LINCOLN-BRECKENRIDGE-DOUGLAS-BELL CONTEST
1860
In 1860 the nation proclaimed the third great political epoch of its
history by an aggressive departure from Democracy to the Republicanism
that has since ruled without material interruption. There have been
two Democratic administrations since the Republican epoch of 1860, but
though they, for the time, halted and modified the Republican policy,
they never had the power to make a decisive reversal of Republican
mastery. Thus an epoch of twelve years of Federalism, another of sixty
years of Democracy, and another of forty years of Republicanism tell
the story of the political revolutions of the Republic during a period
of one hundred and twelve years.