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discovery and working of the rich placer mines of California and the consequent flow, in enormous volume, of her golden treasure into the Eastern States, could not stay-the wide-spread flood of disaster. President Fillmore, who had succeeded General Taylor on the latter's death, frequently called the attention of Congress to the evils produced by this Free Trade, and to the necessity of protecting our manufactures "from ruinous competition from abroad." So also with his successor, President Buchanan, who, in his Message of 1857, declared that "In the midst of unsurpassed plenty in all the productions and in all the elements of national wealth, we find our manufactures suspended, our public works retarded, our private enterprises of different kinds abandoned, and thousands of useful laborers thrown out of employment and reduced to want." Further than this, the financial credit of the Nation was at zero. It was financially bankrupt before the close of Buchanan's Presidential term. CHAPTER IV. POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. But now occurred the great Presidential struggle of 1860 --which involved not alone the principles of Protection, but those of human Freedom, and the preservation of the Union itself-between Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, the candidate of the Republican party, as against Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the National or Douglas-Democratic candidate, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, the Administration or Breckinridge-Democratic candidate, and John Bell of Tennessee, the candidate of the Bell-Union party. The great preliminary struggle which largely influenced the determination of the Presidential political conflict of 1860, had, however, taken place in the State of Illinois, two years previously. To that preliminary political contest of 1858, therefore, we will now turn our eyes--and, in order to fully understand it, it may be well to glance back over a few years. In 1851 the Legislature of Illinois had adopted--[The vote in the House being 65 yeas to 4 nays.]--the following resolution: "Resolved, That our Liberty and Independence are based upon the right of the people to form for themselves such a government as they may choose; that this great principle, the birthright of freemen, the gift of Heaven, secured to us by the blood of our ancestors, ought to be secured to future generations, and no limitation ought to be applied to this power in the
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