xcept Maryland, which pronounced for Fillmore. In
the North, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, and California
voted for Buchanan. The other eleven free States, beginning with
Maine and ending with Iowa, declared for Fremont. The popular vote
was for Buchanan 1,838,169, Fremont 1,341,264, Fillmore 874,534.
With the people, therefore, Mr. Buchanan was in a minority, the
combined opposition outnumbering his vote by nearly four hundred
thousand.

The Republicans, far from being discouraged, felt and acted as men
who had won the battle. Indeed, the moral triumph was theirs, and
they believed that the actual victory at the polls was only postponed.
The Democrats were mortified and astounded by the large popular
vote against them. The loss of New York and Ohio, the narrow escape
from defeat in Pennsylvania, the rebuke of Michigan to their veteran
leader General Cass, intensified by the choice of Chandler as his
successor in the Senate, the absolute consolidation of New England
against them, all tended to humiliate and discourage the party.
They had lost ten States which General Pierce had carried in 1852,
and they had a watchful, determined foe in the field, eager for
another trial of strength. The issue was made, the lines of battles
were drawn. Freedom or slavery in the Territories was to be fought
to the end, without flinching, and without compromise.

Mr. Buchanan came to the Presidency under very different auspices
from those which had attended the inauguration of President Pierce.
The intervening four years had written important chapters in the
history of the slavery contest. In 1853 there was no organized
opposition that could command even a respectable minority in a
single State. In 1857 a party distinctly and unequivocally pledged
to resist the extension of slavery into free territory had control
of eleven free States and was hotly contesting the possession of
the others. The distinct and avowed marshalling of a solid North
against a solid South had begun, and the result of the Presidential
election of 1856 settled nothing except that a mightier struggle
was in the future.

DECISION IN THE CASE OF DRED SCOTT.

After Buchanan's inauguration events developed rapidly. The
Democrats had carried the House, and therefore had control of every
department of the government. The effort to force slavery upon
Kansas was resumed with increased zeal. Strafford's p