The Contenders Essay, Research Paper

For the presidential election of 1856, the Democrats nominated James

Buchanan and John Breckenridge, the freshly formed Republican party nominated

John Fremont and William Drayton, the American [ or Know-Nothing ] party

nominative former president Millard Fillmore and Andrew Donelson, and the

Abolition Party nominated Gerrit Smith and Samuel McFarland.

Buchanan started his political calling as a province representative in

Pennsylvania, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1821,

appointed curate to Russia in 1832, and elected US Senator in 1834. He was

appointed Secretary of State in 1845 by President Polk

and in that capacity helped hammer the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which

ended the Mexican War. He was appointed by President Polk as curate to

Great Britain in 1853. As such, he, along with the American curates to

Spain and France, issued the Ostend Manifesto, which recommended the

appropriation of Cuba to the United States. This endeared him to Southerners,

who assumed Cuba would be a slave province.

He was one of several Northerners supported over the old ages by southern

Democrats for being conformable to slave owners & # 8217 ; involvements, a state of affairs

arising with Martin new wave Buren.

Buchanan & # 8217 ; s two major challengers for the nomination, Franklin Pierce and

Stephen Douglas, were both politically tainted by the bloodshed in Kansas.

Buchanan was untainted, since he had been abroad during most of the

contention. Even so, he did non procure the nomination until the seventeenth

ballot.

Fremont was best known as an adventurer and a war hero. He surveyed the

land between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, explored the Oregon Trail

districts and crossed the Sierra Madres into the Sacramento Valley. As a

captain in the Army, he returned to California and helped the colonists

overthrow Mexican regulation in what became known as the Bear Flag Revolution, a

sidebar to the Mexican War. He was elected as one of California & # 8217 ; s foremost two

Senators.

The infant Republican party was born from the ashes of the Whig party,

which had suffered self-generated burning as a consequence of the slavery issue.

The party & # 8217 ; s convention was a travesty ; merely northern provinces and a few boundary line

break one’s back provinces sent delegates. Lodging to their Whig roots, they nominated a

war hero, albeit a minor 1. William Drayton & # 8217 ; s second best for the VP slot

was Abraham Lincoln.

Fillmore, holding been the 13th president following the decease of

Zachary Taylor, found himself stand foring the American party after many

northern delegates left the convention over a rift caused by the bondage

issue. Their expostulation was that the party platform was non strong plenty

against the spread of bondage. The

party & # 8217 ; s frailty presidential campaigner was a nephew of Andrew Jackson and the

editor of the Washington Union. The party, besides known as the Know-Nothings,

was highly counter towards immigrants, Catholics and other assorted

minorities. The party was born in 1850, when several covert & # 8220 ; Native

American & # 8221 ; societies joined together, their secret watchword being & # 8220 ; I know

nothing. & # 8221 ;

Smith was nominated by the Abolition party in New York, which had

nominated Frederick Douglass for New York secretary of province the twelvemonth before

under the label New York Liberty Party.

The Political campaign: Neither Buchanan nor Fremont campaigned themselves.

Republicans declared Buchanan dead of tetanus. Fremont, nevertheless, had a

splendid run replacement, his beautiful married woman Jessie, motivating & # 8220 ; Oh

Jessie! & # 8221 ; run buttons. The Democrats tried urgently to avoid the

slavery issue wholly, choosing alternatively to prosecute the conservative attempt

to continue the Union. The Republicans, on the other manus, actively attacked

bondage. Their run motto was & # 8220 ; Free Soil, Free Men, Freedom, Fremont & # 8221 ; .

[ Shields-West, pgs 78 & A ; 80 ]

The self-seeking attempts of Stephen Douglas did more to model the

run of 1856 than did any other individual event. Although he did non

deliberately destruct the North-South balance created by the

Compromise of 1850, his focussed pursuit for the White House caused him to do

some foolish picks. Douglas coveted a rail caput in Chicago for the new

transcontinental railway. This would do Chicago a major trade centre for

the state, non unlike New York City when the Erie Canal was completed. He

knew increased economic power for his place province would interpret as

increased political power for him. The South, on the other manus, wanted the

rail caput located in St. Louis, or even New Orleans. In order to procure

southern support for his program, Douglas chose to win them over by suggesting

the Kansas-Nebraska Act, a measure that

would split the Nebraska Territory into two separate districts, each

holding popular sovereignty. This would amount to nullification of the

Missouri Compromise. Using the power of his new southern Alliess, Douglas

wheeled and dealed the Kansas-Nebraska Act through Congress.

By making so, Douglas alienated his northern co-workers. The

anti-slavery motion had become a formidable force in northern political relations.

Douglas erroneously believed popular sovereignty had become more acceptable

to the general populace than it really had. In July of 1856, & # 8216 ; Conscience

Whigs & # 8221 ; , northern Democrats and Free Soilers met in Jackson, Michigan, to

organize the Republican party for the particular

intent of opposing Slav

ery.

In the interim, pro-slavery cabals, many from across the Missouri

boundary line, held a fake election in the freshly formed Kansas Territory, following

a pro-slavery fundamental law and electing a pro-slavery province authorities. When

anti-slavery citizens learned what had happened, they organized their ain

elections. President Pierce, in a serious mistake of opinion, recognized the

first authorities as the official one, motivating widespread bloodshed

throughout the district. This new district, born of such doubtful

beginnings, became known as & # 8220 ; Bleeding Kansas & # 8221 ; . Pierce and Douglas, from that

minute forward, would be scarred politically.

Buchanan finally won the election in the electoral college, although

he did non earn a popular bulk. It was an uneasy triumph, with

provincialism clearly present in the ballot runs.

Normally, a period of comparative composure follows a presidential election, but

the political rhetoric of this run and the grim tenseness between

the North and the South would non let it. On December 1, Pierce sent a

bitter and extremely partizan message to Congress. He pointedly blamed the

go oning Kansas jobs on northern propogandists and outside & # 8220 ; agents of

upset & # 8221 ; . He accused

the Republicans of fixing the state for civil war. Many in Congress

were intelligibly outraged, change by reversaling the charges of provincialism right

back at Pierce. Some blamed the Kansas state of affairs straight on the outgoing

president. In all, it was an unnecessarily unmagnanimous one-year message.

The Buchanan Presidency: In their effort to happen a non-controversial

presidential campaigner, the Democrats alternatively found themselves with a weak

president. Buchanan tried to pacify both sides by naming a mix of

northern and southern politicians to his cabinet, but each side accused him

of prefering the other for the of import places.

Buchanan ne’er married, so the societal responsibilities of the White House were

handled by his niece, Harriet Lane. During a province visit by the Prince of

Wales, an orchestra performed the premiere of a new vocal dedicated to Miss

Lane, titled & # 8220 ; Listen to the Mockingbird. & # 8221 ; [ Saturday Evening Post, pg 57 ]

Two important events took topographic point shortly after Buchanan & # 8217 ; s startup,

both of them holding a awful affect upon the state and neither one

attributable to Buchanan.

Two yearss after taking office, the Taney supreme tribunal handed down its

ill-famed Dred Scott determination, or instead non-decision. The supreme tribunal

fundamentally decided that slaves were belongings and, hence, had no rights in

the tribunal system. The tribunal cited the Fifth Amendment in declining to tamper

in differences affecting slaves. In the larger sense,

though, the opinion declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.

Buchanan supported the determination.

The 2nd event was the Panic of 1857. Though non every bit terrible as the

Panic of 1837, it did do widespread unemployment. A bead in harvest exports

to Europe, caused by the unexpected terminal to the Crimean War, caused a oversupply on

the US market with corresponding monetary value beads. Bank failures led the manner,

get downing with the Ohio Life Insurance & A ; Trust Company, which was really

one of the most well-thought-of fiscal establishments in the state. Lack of

coinage on manus led to many more bank closings. Secretary of the Treasury

Cobb had another $ 4 million in gold coins minted to increase the supply, but

the attempt was bootless. [ Stampp, pgs 223-4 ] The industrialised Northeast

was hardest hit by the depression and northern makers and bankers

of course blamed southern Democrats. Sectionalism continued to decline.

The Kansas contention continued to blight the Buchanan

disposal. He favored the admittance of Kansas as a slave province. The

territorial authorities [ the pro-slavery one recognized by Pierce ] held a

statehood constitutional convention in Lecompton, which anti-slavery

cabals refused to acknowledge. As a consequence, the pro-slavery forces won

control with merely approximately 10 per centum elector engagement. Anti-slavery forces

regained control of the territorial legislative assembly in the following election and

voted down the papers. [ Brinkley, pg 375 ]

Buchanan, against clear grounds to the contrary, decided to side with

the Lecompton proposal. Stephen Douglas, in another eccentric minute of

political self-destruction, argued against the Lecompton papers. The statehood

fundamental law was finally submitted to the general

population of Kansas, who overpoweringly defeated the illicit papers.

However, Kansas was non admitted to the brotherhood, as a free province, until the

shutting yearss of the Buchanan disposal. By so several southern provinces

had already seceded. Buchanan had failed.

Bibliographies:

Bergman, Peter M. The Chronological History of the Negro in America. New

York: Harper & A ; Row, 1969.

Black, Earl and Black, Merle. The Critical South: How Presidents Are Elected.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Brinkley, Alan. American History, A Survey, Vol. 1. New York: McGraw-Hill,

1995.

Meltzer, Milton. Milestones to American Liberty: the Foundations of the

Republic. New York: Cromwell, 1961.

Saturday Evening Post. The Presidents. Indianapolis: Curtis Publication, 1980.

Shields-West, Eileen. World Almanac of Presidential Campaigns. New York: Beacons

Books, 1992.

Stamp, Kenneth M. America in 1857. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.