The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-10-05
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information, Bureau
FREDERIC J. HAsKIN. Director.
washington, ID. @.
PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS
o. The n-EreInont-F' Fillmore
Race of 1886.
washington, ID. @.

L.
bleeding Kansas as the issue, the
Republican party made its first ap-
pearance in the arena of national
politics in 1855, with Colonel John c.
Fremont as its candidate.
If Franklin Pierce and his followers
had been content to rest upon the
Compromise of 1880 as the final set
Element of the slavery question in
politics, the inevitable clash of the
Civil War might have been postponed
for a long time. But the Democrats
had won such a great victory. and
the opposition was so utterly democrat
lied, that the Pierce administration
imagined it could do anything with
fmpunity. INDUCING in that mistaken
belief, Pierce brought about the re-
peal of the Missouri Compromise.
Then, with the doctrine that slavery
must be permitted in territories, the
believers in the peculiar institution"
Sought to extend it to the territories
ofk Kansas and Nebraska. Both of
these territories were north of the
"thirty-six thirty line of the Mis-
souri, Compromise and its repeal
opened up the whole question.
The Republican party was born big.
II stirred up one of the hottest cam
paigns the country has ever known
before it was actually in existence as
a national body 1t owed much of
its power in its first campaign to
Horace Greeley and the New York
Tribune. The Tribune was the Re-
publican Bible. 1t Numbered against
abuses which were exciting the whole
country, yet it could coo as softly as
the dove if political expedience de-
manded. 1t even went SO far as to
bid southern support for Fremont and
talked of avoiding the danger of a
solid SOUTH pleading the while for the
establishment of solid north
Slavery the Real Issue.
No campaign up to that time had
had so many issues. NOf course slav-
cry was the only real issue, but as
yet not one person of any prominence
in actual politics had dared to oppose
slavery in the states where it existed.
1t was only against the extension of
slavery that the Free Sellers, the lib
eral Wings the anti Nebraska Demo-
Gratis and the Republicans were fight
ing. But the southerners realized
that Republican success would mean
an ultimate attack upon the States.
Rights of which they were ardent de-
tenders.
The Republican party held its first
convention at Pittsburgh on Wash
ington.s birthday and formed an or
ganization. 1t called a nominating
convention to meet at Philadelphia on
Bunker's Hill day. That convention
met and nominated John c. Fremont
for president and William L. Dayton
for vice-president. The Democrats
held their convention in Cincinnati, the
first national convention ever held
west of the Alleghanies. The race
for the nomination was spirited. the
candidates being James Buchanan.
who was chosen on the seventeenth
ballot, Franklin Pierce, Stephen A
Douglas and Lewis Cass. John c.
Breckenridge of Kentucky was nomi-
mated for vic e. president.
The Wing party Was broken up, but
its remnants went into the zsNativtst
movement and worked with the new
'sAmeriean1 or "Know-nething party
The Know-nothings nominated Mil
lard Fillmore for president and An
drew. jackson, Donelson of Tennessee
for ce-president. The Wings went
thru the form of holding Xa ma
tional convention and endorsed the
Fillmore ticket. Thus ended the tale
of the Wings, created into a political
organization by anti-Masonry. expiring
as an adjunct of anti-Catholicism.
Free states, free Kansas, free
speech. free men and Fremont. That
was the Republican battle-cry. Buck
and Breck'' was as much as the Demo
cratic campaign poets could find for
their slogan. But it was not a cam
paign of laudation. The Republi
cans denounced and defied and
damned the doings of the Democrats.
The Democrats, in turn, occupied con-
sentative ground and defended their
actions under the constitution The
Fillmore ticket was a refuge for those
who didn't want to take sides in a
most unpleasant argument.
The Kansas Massacre.
After the Lawrence, Kan, massa ere,
Horace Greeley declared that 'Presi-
dent Pierce, the captain of the Border
Ruffians, will go to Cincinnati to seek
denomination stained from head to
foot with the hearts blood of the
Free-state men of Kansas" When
Preston Brooks, a South Carolina
member of congress, assaulted Sen.
Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, in
the senate chamber. the whole north
was set on fire. Greeley called it a
deed of blood committed in the
chamber of assassins."
Indignation meetings were held
everywhere. In Boston there was a
great meeting at fremont temple and
| another in Faneuil Hall. Wendell
Phillips, Lyman Beecher, Theodore
Parker, the venerable Josiah Quincy
! there to fan the flames of popular
Indignation. At the same time, in the
south, the wiser heads could not pre-
vent the young men from app1auding
Brooks action in resenting the insults
which Sumner had, heaped upon the
head of the aged, Senator Butler,
Brooks kinsman.
Good Republicans never called a
regular Democrat anything less insult
! ing than ss.Border Ruffian" Buch-
anan had been the first to sign the IA
nous Osterfd Manifesto which looked
to the annexation of Cuba. The Pierce
administration and Buchanan had
looked with favor upon the Nicara qua
filibustering expedition of William
Walker. the gray-eyed man of des-
tiny" and the Republicans believed
that it was the beginning of a cam
paign>of conquest of which Cuba was
| to be the chief prize. Therefore it was
not at all surprising that the Demo-
Gratis and supporters of Buchanan
! should have found themselves dubbed
"buchaneers.''
A Forgotten Pageant.
One of the greatest political meet
J ings or rallies ever held in this
country was the Fremont and Free