as delegates to Philadelphia
and electors for the State. The political managers even went so
far as to suppress their own electoral ticket during the canvass,
as a peace-offering to old Whiggery and Know-Nothingism, while the
admission of Kansas as a free State was dealt with as the sole
issue, and border ruffian outrages and elaborate disclaimers of
"abolitionism" were the regular staple of our orators, who openly
declared that the Republican party was a "white man's party." Anti-
slavery speakers like Clay and Burlingame were studiously kept out
of Southern Indiana, where the teachings of Republicanism were
especially needed, and Richard W. Thompson, then the professed
champion of Fillmore, but in reality the stipendary of the Democrats,
traversed that region on the stump, denounced the Republicans as
"Abolitionists," "disunionists," and "incendiaries," and was
everywhere unchallenged in his course. Similar tactics, though
not so deplorably despicable, prevailed in several of the other
States, giving unmistakable evidence of the need of a still further
and more thorough enlightenment of the people as to the spirit and
aims of slavery. In the light of these facts, I was not at all
cast down by the defeat of Fremont. He was known as an explorer,
and not as a statesman. If he had succeeded, with mere politicians
in his cabinet, a Congress against him, and only a partially
developed anti-slavery sentiment behind him, the cause of freedom
would have been in fearful peril. The revolution so hopefully
begun might have been arrested by half-way measures, promoting the
slumber rather than the agitation of the truth, while the irritating
nostrums of Buchanan Democracy, so necessary to display the
abominations of slavery, would have been lost to us. The moral
power of the canvass for Fremont was itself a great gain,
notwithstanding the cowardice of some of its leaders. The Republican
movement could not now go backward, and with a probation of four
years to prepare for the next conflict, unembarrassed by the
responsibilities of power, and free to profit by the blunders and
misdeeds of its foe, it was pretty sure of a triumph in 1860.
Fremont had received a popular vote of one million three hundred
and forty-one thousand two hundred and sixty-four, carrying eleven
States and one hundred and fourteen electoral votes; while only
four years before, John P. Hale, standing on substantially the same
platform, had received only