[Sidenote:  Presidential candidates, 1856.]

[Sidenote:  Buchanan.]

[Sidenote:  Fremont.]

356.  Buchanan elected President, 1856.—­The Whigs and the Know-Nothings nominated Millard Fillmore for President and said nothing about slavery.  The Democrats nominated James Buchanan of Pennsylvania for President and John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for Vice-President.  They declared their approval of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and favored a strict construction of the Constitution.  The Republicans nominated John C. Fremont.  They protested against the extension of slavery and declared for a policy of internal improvements at the expense of the nation.  The Democrats won; but the Republicans carried all the Northern states save four.

[Sidenote:  Dred Scott decision, 1857. McMaster, 355-357; Source-Book, 290-291]

[Sidenote:  Opinions of the judges.]

357.  The Dred Scott Decision, 1857.—­The Supreme Court of the United States now gave a decision in the Dred Scott case that put an end to all hope of compromise on the slavery question.  Dred Scott had been born a slave.  The majority of the judges declared that a person once a slave could never become a citizen of the United States and bring suit in the United States courts.  They also declared that the Missouri Compromise was unlawful.  Slave owners had a clear right to carry their property, including slaves, into the territories, and Congress could not stop them.

[Sidenote:  Lincoln’s policy.]

[Sidenote:  His debates with Douglas. McMaster, 388-389; Source-Book, 290-294.]

358.  The Lincoln and Douglas Debates, 1858.—­The question of the reelection of Douglas to the Senate now came before the people of Illinois.  Abraham Lincoln stepped forward to contest the election with him.  “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” said Lincoln.  “This government cannot endure half slave and half free....  It will become all one thing or all the other.”  He challenged Douglas to debate the issues with him before the people, and Douglas accepted the challenge.  Seven joint debates were held in the presence of immense crowds.  Lincoln forced Douglas to defend the doctrine of “popular sovereignty.”  This Douglas did by declaring that the legislatures of the territories could make laws hostile to slavery.  This idea, of course, was opposed to the Dred Scott decision.  Douglas won the election and was returned to the Senate.  But Lincoln had made a national reputation.

[Illustration:  HARPER’S FERRY.]

[Sidenote:  Civil war in Kansas. McMaster, 357.]

[Sidenote:  John Brown.]

[Sidenote:  The slave constitution.]

[Sidenote:  Douglas opposes Buchanan.]