Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/463

 1854-6] Presidential campaign. 431 gathered head and statesmen grew infinitely uneasy when such things could happen. The year 1856 brought another presidential election. It was a year, therefore, when every force that was astir came into the open and added to the manifest and perplexing confusion of affairs. There had been signs beforehand of what was coming. In the autumn of the very year in which the Kansas-Nebraska bill was carried through the House of Representatives (1854), the majority which had carried it was destroyed. All " Anti-Nebraska men " drew away from it to destroy it. They did not draw together. Though "Free-Sorters, 1 " they did not relish as yet the idea of connecting themselves with the separate and avowed Free-Soil party; but joined themselves for the nonce to any independent group which promised them the satisfaction of uttering their protest against what the Democrats were doing, without withdrawing them wholly from their old allegiance. It was then that the Know-Nothings had their opportunity. A great many of the most deeply discontented voters were Whigs. They were still sensible of the compulsion of their lifelong party feeling ; and it was more palatable to them to be Know-Nothings than to join with radicals who seemed inclined still further to jeopardise the peace of the country by forcing the formation of a party of revolt, upon the single and dangerous issue of slavery. In the elections of 1854, therefore, the Know-Nothings not only secured a number of seats in Congress but also elected their candidates for the governorship in Massachusetts and Delaware ; and within another year they had actually carried the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Kentucky, and California, besides polling votes which fell very little short of being majorities in no less than six of the southern States, where the proper issues of the " American " party had no natural place or significance at all. The House of Representatives chosen in the autumn of 1854 pre- sented a curious and hitherto unknown medley of groups and elements : Democrats, Anti-Nebraska men, Free-Soilers, Southern pro-slavery Whigs, and Know-Nothings no regular Whig party being left, and as yet no fixed or certain combination of parties to fill its place. It took two months to elect a Speaker and organise the House for business ; and, by the time that was done, the year had arrived in which a new President must be elected, and parties were once more re-forming for a fresh contest for the control of the Executive. When once the process of recombination had been definitely and deliberately begun it was pushed forward to its consummation with extraordinary rapidity. Before the presidential campaign of 1856 had been set in order for the time of voting, a new party was in the field, strong, confident, aggressive. Almost all " Anti-Nebraska men," of whatever former allegiance in politics, had drawn together as the " Republican " party ; and the first year of their new organisation did not go by before they had won