The Contenders
For the presidential election of 1856, the Democrats nominated James
Buchanan and John Breckenridge, the newly formed Republican party nominated
John Fremont and William Drayton, the American [or Know-Nothing] party
nominated former president Millard Fillmore and Andrew Donelson, and the
Abolition Party nominated Gerrit Smith and Samuel McFarland.
Buchanan started his political career as a state representative in
Pennsylvania, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1821,
appointed minister 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 forge the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ...
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Buchanan's two major rivals 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
controversy. Even so, he did not secure the nomination until the seventeenth
ballot.
Fremont was best known as an explorer and a war hero. He surveyed the
land between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, explored the Oregon Trail
territories and crossed the Sierra Madres into the Sacramento Valley. As a
captain in the Army, he returned to California and helped the settlers
overthrow Mexican rule in what became known as the Bear Flag Revolution, a
sidebar to the Mexican War. He was elected as one of California's first two
Senators.
The infant Republican party was born from the ashes of the Whig party,
which had suffered spontaneous combustion as a result of the slavery issue.
The party's convention was a farce; only northern states and a few border
slave states ...
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tried desperately to avoid the
slavery issue altogether, opting instead to pursue the conservative effort
to preserve the Union. The Republicans, on the other hand, actively attacked
slavery. Their campaign slogan was "Free Soil, Free Men, Freedom, Fremont".
[Shields-West, pgs 78 & 80]
The self-serving efforts of Stephen Douglas did more to mold the
campaign of 1856 than did any other single event. Although he did not
intentionally destroy the North-South balance created by the
Compromise of 1850, his focused quest for the White House caused him to make
some foolish choices. Douglas coveted a rail head in Chicago for the new
transcontinental railroad. This would make Chicago ...
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The Contenders. (2007, November 28). Retrieved November 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Contenders/74994
"The Contenders." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 28 Nov. 2007. Web. 23 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Contenders/74994>
"The Contenders." Essayworld.com. November 28, 2007. Accessed November 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Contenders/74994.
"The Contenders." Essayworld.com. November 28, 2007. Accessed November 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Contenders/74994.
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