The Republican party. this latter; with no other party name than the awkward title of “Anti-Nebraska men,” it carried the Congressional elections of 1854 at the North, forced many of the former Know-Nothing leaders into union with it, and controlled the house of representatives of the Congress which met in 1855. The Democratic party, which had been practically the only party since 1852, had now to face the latest and strongest of its broad-constructionist opponents, one which with the nationalizing features of the Federal and Whig parties combined democratic feelings and methods, and, above all, had a democratic purpose at bottom. It acknowledged, at first, no purpose aimed at slavery, only an intention to exclude slavery from the Territories; but, under such principles, it was the only party which was potentially an anti-slavery party, the only party to which the enslaved labourer of the South could look with the faintest hope of aid in reaching the status of a man. The new party had grasped the function which belonged of right to its great opponent, and it seized with it its opponent's original title. The name Democrat had quite taken the place of that first used—Republican (§ 150), but the latter had never passed out of popular remembrance and liking at the North. The new party took quick and skilful advantage of this by assuming the old name, and early in 1856 the two great parties of the next thirty years—the Democratic and Republican parties—were drawn up against one another.
246. The foreign relations of the United States during Pierce's term of office were overshadowed by the domestic Koszta case. difficulties, but were of importance. In the Koszta case (1853) national protection had been afforded on foreign soil to a person who had only taken the preliminary steps Japan. to naturalization. Japan had been opened to American intercourse and commerce (1854). But the question of slavery was more and more thrusting itself even into foreign relations. A great Southern republic, to be founded at first by the slave States, but to take in gradually the whole territory around the Gulf of Mexico and include the West Indies, was soon to be a pretty general ambition among slave-holders, and its first phases appeared during Pierce's administration. Efforts were begun to obtain Cuba from Spain; and the three leading American Ostend manifesto. ministers abroad, meeting at Ostend, united in declaring the possession of Cuba to be essential to the well-being of the United States (1854). “Filibustering” expeditions Filibustering. against Cuba or the smaller South American states, intended so to revolutionize them as to lay a basis for an application to be annexed to the United States, became common, and taxed the energies of the Federal Government for their prevention. All these, however, yielded in interest and importance to the affairs in Kansas.
Kansas.247. Nebraska was then supposed to be a desert, and attention was directed almost exclusively to Kansas. No sooner had its organization left the matter of slavery to be decided by its “people” than the anti-slavery people of the North and West felt it to be their duty to see that the “people” of the Territory should be anti-slavery in sympathy. Emigrant associations were formed, and these shipped men and families to Kansas, arming them for their protection in the new country. Southern newspapers called for similar measures in the South, but the call was less effective. Southern men without slaves, settling a new State, were uncomfortably apt to prohibit slavery, as in California. Only slave-holders were trusty pro-slavery men; and such were not likely to take slaves to Kansas, and risk their ownership on the result of the struggle. But for the people of Missouri, Kansas would have been free soil at once. Lying across the direct road to Kansas, the Missouri settlers blockaded the way of free-State settlers, crossed into Kansas, and voted profusely at the first Territorial election. Their votes chose a Territorial legislature which gave a complete code of slave laws to the Territory. Passing to the north of Missouri the “free-State settlers” entered Kansas to find that their opponents had secured the first position. This brought out the fundamental difference between a Territory—under the absolute control of Congress and only privileged in certain branches of legislation—and a State with complete jurisdiction over its own affairs. Finding themselves cut off from control of the former, the free-State settlers determined to attempt to substitute the latter. They Free-state government. organized a State government (1855), and applied for admission by Congress. Such irregular erections of States had been known before; and, though they were confessedly not binding until confirmed by Congress, the Democratic party had always been tender with them, and prone to seek a compromise with them. A symptom of the process which had been making the Democratic party pro-slavery was seen in the attitude which the Democratic administration now took towards the inchoate State of Kansas. Never thinking of compromise, it pounced on the new organization, scattered it, arrested its leaders, and expressed a hesitating desire to try them for treason (1856). Nevertheless, the free-State settlers gave no further obedience to the Territorial government, as the pro-slavery settlers refused to recognize the pseudo-State government, and the struggle passed into a real civil war, the two powers mustering considerable armies, fighting battles, capturing towns, and paroling prisoners. The struggle was really over in 1857, and the South was beaten. It could not compete with the resources and enthusiasm of the other section; its settlers were not unanimous, as their opponents were; and the anti-slavery settlers were in a great majority. There were, however, all sorts of obstacles yet to be overcome before the new State of Kansas was recognized by Congress, after the withdrawal of the senators of the seceding States (1861).
Election of 1856.248. In the heat of the Kansas struggle came the presidential election of 1856. The Democrats nominated Buchanan, declaring, as usual, for the strictest limitation of the powers of the Federal Government on a number of points specified, and reaffirming the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Act—the settlement of slavery by the people of the Territory. The remnant of the Whig party, including the Know-Nothings of the North and those Southern men who wished no further discussion of slavery, nominated the president who had gone out of office in 1853, Fillmore. The Republican party nominated Fremont; the bulk of its manifesto was taken up with protests against attempts to introduce slavery into the Territories; but it showed its broad-construction tendencies by declaring for appropriations of public moneys for internal improvements. The Democrats were successful in electing Buchanan; but the position of the party was quite different from the triumph with which it had come out of the election of 1852. It was no longer master of twenty-seven of the thirty-one States; all New England and New York, all the North-West but Indiana and Illinois, all the free States but five, had gone against it; its candidate no longer had a majority of the popular vote, but was chosen by a majority of the electoral votes; and it had before it a party with nearly as many popular votes as its own, the control of most of the strongest section of the Union, and an enthusiasm which was more dangerous still. For the first time in the history of the country a distinctly anti-slavery candidate had obtained an electoral vote, and had even come near obtaining the presidency. Fillmore had carried but one State, Maryland; Buchanan had carried the rest of the South, with a few States in the North, and Fremont the rest of the North and none of the South.
