Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/286

 228 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS vice-presidency, Mr. Dayton, of New Jersey, was a citizen of a non-slave-holding state. Gen. Fre mont himself was nominally a citizen of California. This election, therefore, foreshadowed the sec tional division that would be almost certain to hap pen in the next one if the four years of Mr. Bu chanan s administration should not witness a sub sidence in the sectional feelings between the north and the south. It would only be necessary for the republicans to wrest from the democratic party the five free states that had voted for Mr. Buchanan, and they would elect the president in 1860. Whether this was to happen would depend upon the ability of the democratic party to avoid a rup ture into factions that would themselves be repre sentatives of irreconcilable dogmas on the subject of slavery in the territories. Hence it is that Mr. Buchanan s course as president, for the first three years of his term, is to be judged with reference to the responsibility that was upon him so to conduct the government as to disarm, if possible, the an tagonism of section to section. His administration of affairs after the election of Mr. Lincoln is to be judged simply by his duty as the executive in the most extraordinary and anomalous crisis in which the country had ever been placed. Mr. Buchanan was inaugurated on March 4, 1857. The cabinet, which was confirmed by the senate on March 6, consisted of Lewis Cass, of