lmore for the Presidency, and had associated with him Andrew
Jackson Donelson of Tennessee as candidate for the Vice-Presidency.
On the engrossing question of the day Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Fillmore
did not represent antagonistic ideas, and between them there could
be no contest to arouse enthusiasm or even to enlist interest in
the North. The movement for Fillmore afforded a convenient shelter
for that large class of men who had not yet made up their minds as
to the real issue of slavery extension or slavery prohibition.

The Republican party had meanwhile been organizing and consolidating.
During the years 1854 and 1855 it had acquired control of the
governments in a majority of the free States, and it promptly called
a national convention to meet in Philadelphia in June, 1856. The
Democracy saw at once that a new and dangerous opponent was in the
field,--an opponent that stood upon principle and shunned expediency,
that brought to its standard a great host of young men, and that
won to its service a very large proportion of the talent, the
courage, and the eloquence of the North. The convention met for
a purpose and it spoke boldly. It accepted the issue as presented
by the men of the South, and it offered no compromise. In its
ranks were all shades of anti-slavery opinion,--the patient
Abolitionist, the Free-Soiler of the Buffalo platform, the Democrats
who had supported the Wilmot Proviso, the Whigs who had followed
Seward.

NOMINATION OF JOHN C. FREMONT.

There was no strife about candidates. Mr. Seward was the recognized
head of the party, but he did not desire the nomination. He agreed
with his faithful mentor, Thurlow Weed, that his time had not come,
and that his sphere of duty was still in the Senate. Salmon P.
Chase was Governor of Ohio, waiting re-election to the Senate, and,
like Seward, not anxious for a nomination where election was regarded
as improbable if not impossible. The more conservative and timid
section of the party advocated the nomination of Judge McLean of
the Supreme Court, who for many years had enjoyed a shadowy mention
for the Presidency in Whig journals of a certain type. But Judge
McLean was old and the Republican party was young. He belonged to
the past, the party was looking to the future. It demanded a more
energetic and attractive candidate, and John C. Fremont was chosen
on the first ballot. He was forty-three years of age,