Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/240

 188 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS thirty-five ballotings for a candidate for president, in which Gen. Pierce s name did not appear, the Virginia delegation brought it forward, and on the 49th ballot he was nominated by 282 votes to 11 for all others. James Buchanan, Stephen A. Douglas, Lewis Cass, and William L. Marcy were his chief rivals. Gen. Winfield Scott, the Whig candidate, was unsatisfactory both to the north and to the south. Webster and his friends leaned toward Pierce, and, in the election in November, Scott carried only Massachusetts, Vermont, Ken tucky, and Tennessee, with 42 votes, while Pierce carried all the other states with 254 votes. The Whig party had received its death-stroke, and dissolved. In his inaugural address, March 4, 1853, Presi dent Pierce maintained the constitutionality of slavery and the fugitive-slave law, denounced slavery agitation, and hoped that &quot;no sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement might again threaten the durability of our institutions, or obscure the light of our prosperity.&quot; On March 7 he announced as his cabinet William L. Marcy, of New York, secretary of state; James Guthrie, of Kentucky, secretary of the treasury; Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, secretary of war; James C. Dobbin, of North Carolina, secretary of the navy; Robert McClelland, of Michigan, secretary of the interior; James Campbell, of Pennsylvania, post-