 On both sides of the political aisles today, people like to view the media as being essentially another branch of the government, though the personal biases of Republicans and Democrats compel them to point their respective fingers at the political biases of the media helping whichever party they don't like. So Republicans like to point to CNN, MSNBC, and most newspapers as being extensions of the Democratic Party, while the Democrats like to point at Fox News and talk radio as being extensions of the Republican Party. None of this is likely to be news to anybody, but such media biases are not new in American history, even with the freedom of the press, that is, at least in theory, protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Obviously, if the press is free, then it's free to take political sides, and this has been happening since the early days of the Republic. But the example of this that pertains to today's episode is the political side taken by the editor of the Washington Globe in the 1830s. The editor is a name few people have likely heard today, Francis Preston Blair. Blair was effectively, though unofficially, an advisor to President Andrew Jackson. It was Jackson, in fact, who had encouraged Blair to move to Washington from Kentucky in 1830. The two had a very friendly relationship, and Blair essentially used the Washington Globe as the trumpet for the Jackson administration. Blair actually sat in on council meetings where national policy decisions were made, and then he went back to the Globe's office to assign reporters to write articles about this information. Jackson's political opponents referred to Blair and others like him as Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet. But unlike other members of the so-called Kitchen Cabinet, Blair was almost family to the Jackson's. He and his own family lived in mansions known as the Blair House right across from the White House, where his wife Eliza would knit socks for the president, and his daughter actually lived in the White House for a time working as a secretary. Elizabeth Blair was actually given the wedding dress of Jackson's wife when Andrew Jackson, who had no children himself, was dying in 1845. So Jackson and Blair were close, and as long as Jackson or his allies were in power, Blair would enjoy a comfortable position in the country's capital. When Martin Van Buren took office, Blair retained his cozy position, and when the Whigs reclaimed the presidency, Blair and his paper became the voice of the opposition. But the Democrats started a rupture in the early 1840s. Blair remained editor of the Globe until 1849, but when Democrat James K. Polk, Van Buren's political rival, took office in 1844, Blair was excluded from policy meetings, and his printing contract was not renewed. Blair wanted to win back his favored position. But over the next few years, the more vociferously pro-slavery Democrats continued to dominate the party, and the Northern Democrats, who were usually moderates on slavery like David Wilmot, gradually left the party. In the most significant wave of defection, which came as a result of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, Blair joined the Democrat defectors and finally left the party of Andrew Jackson, encouraging Northern Democrats to join him where he hoped he could form a separate Northern Democrat party, much like what ultimately occurred in 1860, though Blair would not be at the forefront of that decision. In 1855, Blair joined the New Republican Party and published a letter that now urged Northern Democrats to join him there. He used the repeal of the Missouri Compromise as the basis for his call to action. Blair was already thinking about the presidential election of 1856. The New Republican Associations were clamoring to recruit Northern Democrats, and the Washington Association was after Blair, who would serve as a great example of a prominent Jacksonian who was fed up with the current Democratic Party. But Blair did not join this Republican Association because too many of its members were actual abolitionists, which is not a movement Blair had any desire to be a part of. Instead, he formed a coalition with five other men who met inside Blair's home to discuss their plans for the new party. The five men who met with Blair made significant decisions for the new party. They decided to hold a national organizing convention in Pittsburgh, though the convention would end up being held in Philadelphia. They also agreed that they would push to see Nathaniel Banks become Speaker of the House. Importantly, they debated whether to include members of the American Party, which was formed in opposition to foreign immigration, and some, like Samuel Chase, wanted to join forces to be more competitive, but others were opposed. But most important was the discussion of potential presidential tickets for the 1856 election. Nathaniel Banks and Sam and P. Chase were among the six men in the room, and they were popular contenders. Supreme Court Justice John McClane was another name mentioned, but Francis Blair had somebody else in mind. Blair had a long-standing friendship with Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton. If Benton could become president, Blair would likely regain his lost stature in Washington, D.C., but Benton was quickly dismissed by the others in the group and with good reason. Although he was one of only two Southern Democrats who opposed the Kansas Nebraska Act, this actually cost him some support in his own state of Missouri, and he had actually already been removed from the Senate after his stance against the extension of slavery during the compromise of 1850, forcing him to settle for the lesser office in the House of Representatives. So he was old, and his career was clearly declining, making him an undesirable choice. Besides, he was still a member of the Democratic Party, so he would have to be enticed into leaving the party he had been a part of during his long political career. So while Benton's exclusion from the nomination was probably a disappointment to Francis Blair, he had a backup option. Blair's son, Montgomery, had worked as a lawyer for Thomas Hart Benton, and from this connection, Montgomery Blair found his way to working on the legal battle Benton's son-in-law, John C. Vermont, was facing in California. Furthermore, Francis Blair's daughter, Elizabeth, was very close friends with Benton's daughter, Vermont's wife, Jesse Benton, Vermont. In the second episode of the season, the episode on the California Gold Rush, I talked quite a bit about John C. Vermont. Now I know a lot of what I discussed in that episode probably seemed like anecdotal filler, but in this episode we are going to be able to tie in some interesting details that connect to the election of 1856. Vermont was elected as one of California's first senators, and he was considered a hero to many people in the state. He was wealthy, he was young, he was handsome, and due in large part to the help of his wife in writing his memoirs, he was famous throughout the country as many people were familiar with his exploits in the west. Vermont was also, like many Californians, a nativist. He had vocally expressed opposition to immigration, which would be tactically useful in attracting supporters from the nativist know-nothings that were faced with taking sides between the Republican Party and the American Party. Vermont was an anti-slavery Democrat, just like his father-in-law, but his anti-slavery beliefs were largely due to the influence of his wife and he was effectively a moderate on the slavery issue. He had, for example, voted against outlawing slavery in Washington, D.C., but he voted to abolish the slave trade there. Vermont was attractive enough as a candidate and middle-of-the-road enough on slavery that Southern Democrats wanted to recruit him for the presidential ticket as well, but they demanded that he wholeheartedly support the Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. After discussing the possibility with his wife, Vermont decided instead to defect to the Republicans. With Francis Blair supporting him from behind the scenes, Vermont would become the first presidential candidate of the Republican Party. I'm Chris Calton and this is the Mises Institute podcast, Historical Controversies. In the past few episodes, we talked about the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the tensions that peaked in 1856. Kansas would remain a contested territory for the next few years, but probably the most important outcome of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of the country was the anti-Nebraska meetings, as they were called, that ultimately led to the emergence of the Republican Party as the replacement for the Whigs. This will be the topic of today's episode. I said in an earlier episode that the abolitionist movement, which started to grow in the 1830s, had a significant role in the emergence of the Republican Party, and this is true, but it's worth some qualification so my statements are not misconstrued. The abolitionists are important in understanding the transition into the new party system in the United States due to the parties formed in the 1840s. However, out of the three anti-slavery parties that formed, being the Liberty Party, the Free Soil Party, and finally the Republican Party, the Republican Party was by far the most moderate on slavery, and it also embraced a number of other platform positions that had nothing to do with slavery. All of this was necessary politically for the Republican Party to become a major political power, but it also illustrates the important fact that the Republican Party was not any kind of abolitionist party, which is what I've seen some people refer to it as, though historians, as generous as they are to Lincoln, tend to acknowledge that the Republican Party was moderate on the slavery question. It was the southern opponents to the Republicans who actually presented the image of the Republicans as abolitionists, and it's somewhat ironic that Republicans who like to exaggerate the Republican opposition to slavery as being more than it was originated from this false southern Democrat narrative. In 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society was founded by the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappin. At the time, it contained abolitionists who opposed voting on moral grounds, basically the same logic that some modern libertarians used to oppose voting in principle. But it also contained abolitionists who believed in voting, and believed that voting could be used to affect political change. So for libertarians who argue about whether or not voting is morally legitimate or even politically useful, this debate is virtually identical to the old abolitionist debates of the 19th century. But the American Anti-Slavery Society wasn't a political organization. Its constitution pledged that its members would work to encourage Congress to end the slave trade and to end slavery in Washington D.C. in the territories, so it wasn't entirely apolitical, but it did not prescribe the method by which members would pursue this goal. So tactical debates raged through the 1830s, eventually leading to a split near the end of the decade between voting and non-voting members. Aileen Cradditer, who wrote an important book on the abolitionist movement called Ends and Means in American Abolitionists, makes a distinction between two types of abolitionists, radicals and reformers. Radicals were those like Garrison, who opposed the political process and agitated for the immediate abolition of slavery and full rights to blacks. Reformers were abolitionists who believed in pursuing these goals through the political process. So as the society grew, there seemed to be agreement that politics was dirty and immoral, but an increasing number of members believed that the corruption in politics was the product of good people not taking part, and they advocated political organization. This ultimately yielded the Splinter Group called the New England Anti-Slavery Society. In 1838, the New England Anti-Slavery Society held a convention where it resolved first that it was the duty of every abolitionist in the country to vote to elect anti-slavery men to Congress. This was in contrast to the American Anti-Slavery Society, but not because they opposed voting, but rather because they believed it was the choice of the individual. At one point Garrison was asked by Henry Stanton if it was a sin to vote, and Garrison answered, quote, sin for me, basically avoiding any policy prescription for other people on the matter, but affirming his moral opposition to the political process. The second resolution adopted at the 1838 New England Anti-Slavery Society convention resolved to resist the formation of any political party. Instead, the abolitionists should just vote for whichever candidate of any party would best support abolitionist views. So this new society was basically resolving that it was the moral obligation and that distinction is important, that it was a duty, not a choice, to work within the political system to further the goals of abolitionism. One of the chief agitators within the American Anti-Slavery Society on the question of political action was James G. Burney, and at least a good part of his motivation for tackling this question was to go at the so-called non-resistant wing of the abolitionists. In one address, Burney said, quote, In short, the no-government doctrines they are believed now to be embraced seem to strike at the root of the social structure and tend to throw society into entire confusion and to renew under the sanction of religion scenes of anarchy and license that have generally here to fore been the offspring of the rankest infidelity and irreligion. It is but justice to say, judging from the more deportment and the adherence of the no-government scheme that so far from admitting what I have supposed to be its legitimate consequences, they will wholly deny and repudiate them. End quote. Now, Burney in this speech is trying to make abolitionists look more respectable. He is denouncing the anarchistic tendencies among abolitionists and I believe I briefly mentioned in an earlier episode that I don't really consider most of the non-resisters to have been anarchists. They typically critiques governments along anarchistic lines but advocated instead the institution of the government of God so their place in anarchist intellectual history is batable. Only a few abolitionists like Lysander Spooner and Ezra Haywood can meaningfully be considered anarchists, though Haywood was more of the socialist stripe than Spooner. But Burney wasn't wrong to paint these abolitionists as quote, unquote, no-government types either. They opposed as non-resisters any man-made government on the grounds that coercion was immoral. So my reasoning behind questioning them as anarchists is that their replacement government based on their religious beliefs is not well fleshed out. It essentially assumed mankind was perfectible or should at least pursue perfection and once this took place the government wouldn't require coercion. So it's a murky question honestly over how anarchistic these types of abolitionists were. So take my analysis with a grain of salt. I just like throwing it out there because the history of early anarchist thought is a research interest of mine so I'm allowing myself to get a bit sidetracked here. But when debating Garrison, Burney did not speak out against the formation of a third party the way the New England Anti-Slavery Society did in its resolutions. At the end of 1839 that third party formed as the Liberty Party and in its April convention the next year the convention attendees in Albany, New York named James Burney their presidential candidate. The Liberty Party was very much an abolitionist party. Its organization rested on three assumptions according to historian, alien creditor which were variously held by different Liberty Party members. First, there was the belief that an abolitionist should never vote for any candidate who was unwilling to use his full political power to seek the abolition of slavery. The second assumption which was more politically moderate held that the two major parties must never be dominated by the slave power so people adhering to this assumption were obviously those most likely to support the free soil and republican parties that would come later. The third assumption was that any abolitionist party was temporary and would end when slavery was ended so these people supported the Liberty Party with no interest in making it a permanent national party which was probably naive political thinking. Creditor also suggests the fourth possible Liberty Party assumption which is that the Constitution made it legal for Congress to abolish slavery in the states which was a radical constitutional interpretation. Like Sanders Spooner in 1845 would publish the Unconstitutionality of Slavery which would be an even more radical interpretation of this idea except that Spooner would argue that not only did Congress have the power to abolish slavery but he said that the institution of slavery did not even constitutionally exist in the first place either nationally or in a given state so upholding slavery at any political level was already unconstitutional. To put this interpretation of the Constitution into perspective Charles Sumner who was categorized by historians as a radical republican believed that slavery could only constitutionally be ended by the ratification of a constitutional amendment so most people in the country even many anti-slavery people did maintain that the Constitution required a legal recognition of slavery in slave states and the prevalence of this notion is actually one of the reasons that like Sanders Spooner decided to abandon his support of the Constitution entirely as his later note trees and pamphlets demonstrate I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in the next episode When the Liberty Party was founded supporters obviously now accepted that the abolitionist should vote but now the debate raged over how an abolitionist should vote I like talking about this because these debates are so remarkably parallel to the modern debates between libertarians on voting so many people who supported the Liberty Party believed that voting was valid but only if you were voting for abolitionist candidates other people argued what is essentially the overseer goody versus overseer baddie argument or the idea that people should vote for the lesser of two evils in the absence of a truly good candidate George Bradburn for instance published such an argument in The Liberator he gave the example of two candidates in New York who were each indifferent on the slavery question but one candidate favored the rights of free blacks to vote while the other opposed the legal right of free blacks voting in this instance Bradburn said he would obviously support the former candidate even though he was not an abolitionist most importantly though in understanding the Republican Party is that the Liberty Party leaders resolved not to take any stand on any issue except slavery the goal was primarily to convince northerners to become abolitionists this was easier said than done though as there were plenty of other issues that people in the north cared about such as the post office monopoly the price of public lands and their sell to settlers as homesteads, internal improvements, alcohol prohibition protective tariffs, female suffrage, universal male suffrage which mean opposition to requirements of land ownership to be able to vote the direct election of senators, abolition of the army and the navy financial liability of corporations, judicial reform, government monopolies and on and on and I mentioned these as issues that Liberty Party members like the rest of the northern population did not agree on so it was impossible to unite around any of these other issues so officially the Liberty Party was a single issue party but unofficially the positions held by candidates like Bernie who simply couldn't keep his mouth shut about his other political positions turned people away from the Liberty Party candidates who they disagree with on issues that did not involve slavery so the Liberty Party put up a presidential candidate in the elections of 1840, 44 and 48 but these problems predictably prevented them from gaining any real political ground especially in the years prior to the compromise of 1850 that would make the slavery question more significant for many northerners the Liberty Party as I said did run a candidate, Garrett Smith in 1848 but similar to the split at the end of the 1830s in the American Anti-Slavery Society the Liberty Party saw a split at the end of the 1840s this time the split was between the single issue voters who believed that agitation of the slavery question was the only thing that mattered at least officially speaking while the new free soil party was willing to embrace more political issues this party was able to emerge out of the debate over the Wilmot Proviso which if you remember from earlier episodes was a proposal by a northern Democrat to prevent the extension of slavery into any new territories that the US might acquire during the Mexican War which is a popular position among people who were interested in protecting white labor from both slave labor and competition from free blacks so as we're tracing the political history what we're observing is the increasing shift toward the political center which is a common theory regarding the inevitable trend of political parties in theory for a political party to gain enough support to be a major contender it will seek new voters by moving away from whatever radical poll it starts with and move toward the center to attract a larger population of voters in doing this the most extreme radicals will end up leaving the party and they will be replaced by more moderate members and this will continue if you subscribe to this theory until the party is effectively just another centrist party so this would suggest that the Republican and Democrat parties today have become nearly identical because of this political tendency and it would also suggest things about third parties like the Libertarian and Green parties assuming that they ever gain more popular success of course but I'm not throwing this idea out here to advocate it but I do think that the realignment of political power in the 1840s and 50s does appear to conform to this theory in 1848 even the Liberty Party itself shifted more toward the center the first nomination for president on the Liberty Party ticket was former Whig John P. Hale Hale was not an abolitionist he was merely opposed to the extension of slavery in new territories for many Liberty Party members this was enough to compel them to leave Hale actually withdrew from the party some of the Liberty Party defectors rejoined to support Garrett Smith but while the party debated over the nomination the former president Martin Van Buren was also suggested as a possible candidate instead Martin Van Buren would run for president under the new Free Soil Party and the 1852 Free Soil presidential candidate would be John P. Hale but by the 1852 election the Liberty Party was effectively down a way with as many of its members defected to the new Free Soil Party the Free Soil Party first and foremost was softer on slavery than the Liberty Party it opposed to the extension of slavery but not its immediate abolition where it already existed regarding the rights of blacks which many abolitionists tend to support most abolitionists were racist in that they believed blacks to be intellectually inferior to whites but they still believed that blacks should have equal political rights but the new Free Soil Party compromised on the political rights of blacks as well this is largely due to the population of so-called barn burners being the defectors from the Democrat Party like Martin Van Buren who were politically anti-slavery in a very moderate sense Van Buren for example promised to veto any bill that proposed the abolition of slavery in Washington DC which appalled many Liberty Party members so the Free Soil Party avoided any platform position on the rights of free blacks since I mentioned the transition toward political moderation a minute ago that was a good example of it the Liberty Party favored equal rights for blacks as well as abolitionism the Free Soil Party opposed to the extension of slavery and explicitly resolved not to interfere with slavery where it already existed but it took no official position on the rights of free blacks the Republican Party would explicitly reject the rights of free blacks while adopting the Free Soil position on slavery so each new party shifted more toward the middle on the issue of slavery and free blacks so the Free Soil Party was not an abolitionist party it was an anti-slavery party according to the doctrines of the time in that it opposed to the extension of slavery only so when I refer to anybody in this history as anti-slavery it should be clear that I'm using the term in the context of the political environment of the time which means that a person need not favor the abolition of slavery to be anti-slavery in the 19th century political sense but some abolitionists did celebrate the Free Soil Party not because it was in line with their principles but rather because it demonstrated that the sentiments in the north were shifting toward great opposition to slavery in general how true this was is debatable but this is important in understanding why the southern political elites were so concerned with the Free Soil and Republican parties despite their explicit endorsement of slavery where it already existed many southerners viewed the growth of these parties as evidence that the north was essentially becoming abolitionist and it was only a matter of time before they turned to those beliefs against the peculiar institution of the south I keep stressing because it's important that the southern perception of the north on the slavery question is more important in understanding southern behavior than the actual reality of northern views about slavery many abolitionists compromised politically because they believed that a coalition under the Free Soil Party with non-abolitionists would be politically useful they wanted to prevent the introduction of any new slave states under the constitution other abolitionists maintained their radical views and the Free Soil Party only reaffirmed their beliefs that politics was inherently evil Laysander Spooner has a great comment regarding this issue he said quote if abolitionists think that the constitution supports slavery they ought not to ask for power under it nor to vote for anyone who will support it revolution should be their principle Spooner of course would be one of the few abolitionists who would continue to maintain this view after the Civil War which he saw as a damnable hypocrisy on the part of supposedly anti-slavery men like Charles Sumner the Free Soil Party platform contended that the legality of slavery depended on state law, not federal law they also invoked the Fifth Amendment to assert the right of slave owners to protection of their slaves from interference by the federal government but by this time Laysander Spooner's great work The Unconstitutionality of Slavery had been published and relatively widely read and an increasing number of people such as James Burnie were seriously considering Spooner's arguments which rested on natural rights theory during the 1840s William Lloyd Garrison was actually becoming more radical himself in 1842 he started vocally supporting disunion with a rallying cry no union with slave holders he actually ended his review of Spooner's work with this slogan so the most radical abolitionists wanted the North to secede and in fact one of the men in the country who advocated disunion was William J, grandson of John J who wrote some of the Federalist papers the secession was the doctrine of both the radical Southerners and the radical abolitionists but many people like to gloss over the abolitionist support of secession in the 1840s and 50s the Republican Party would ultimately emerge out of the anti-Nebraska meetings that followed the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act but it was by no means certain that it would become the dominant political party the Kansas-Nebraska Act essentially killed off the Whig party leaving a void for a new party to emerge but the Free Soil Party was not the only contender vying for the new position the potato famine in Ireland in 1848 led to a massive wave of immigration into the country of Irish settlers immigration then and now was seen by many people as a way of lowering the price of labor and taking jobs from American citizens in California anti-Chinese sentiment was especially high but in the east the ire was targeted predominantly at the Irish not just because there were so many of them but also because they were Catholic so 1849 saw the emergence of a semi-secret group called the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner who began meeting to oppose immigrants and Catholics I say semi-secret because when people asked about them members of the organization were expected to reply I know nothing leading them to be referred to as know-nothings so the know-nothings in the 1850s were a respectably large interest group that represented nativism and anti-Catholicism in 1854 know-nothings won several congressional seats so after the demise of the Whig party they were a serious contender as the new major party now that the second party system in the US had ended for background by the way the first party system in the US was the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans who were called Republicans at the time but are referred to as Democratic Republicans to distinguish them from the Republican Party that we are discussing in this episode the second party system came about when the Whigs led by Henry Clay, emerged as the major contender to Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party so with the demise of the Whigs a new party would mean the establishment of the third party system after the Kansas-Nebraska Act meetings were held all over the north as anti-Nebraska meetings but they varied regarding their political allegiances the Congress that was elected in 1854 was essentially an anti-Nebraska Congress the House of Representatives had 79 Democrats against 118 anti-Nebraska men but the opposition to the Democrats was not in any way unified the anti-Nebraska people were a mix between conscience Whigs people who remained in the dying Whig party but who opposed slavery free soiled Democrats, the new Republicans and the free soilers who ran under the anti-Nebraska label in 1854 and 37 pro-slavery Whigs the Senate of course was controlled by the Democrats with 15 Republicans and 5 no-nothings opposing them so 1854 saw the creation of the Republican Party which was the evolution of the free soil party but with the increasing moderation on the slavery and race issues as I mentioned earlier but with the growing presence of the no-nothings debate ensued over whether a coalition should be formed to unite with the nativists and anti-Catholics this debate would lead into the election of 1856 one of the anti-Nebraska candidates was Nathaniel Banks who was elected to the House in 1852 but was only barely re-elected in 1854 after the free soil candidate withdrew Banks enjoyed some support from no-nothing voters as well so he was a prime example of coalition and compromise that the new party would need to emerge as the dominant replacement for the Whigs with support from various groups Nathaniel Banks was able to secure the position as Speaker of the House and as a no-nothing man he advocated a fusion between the free soilers and the nativists in 1855 he served as chair to a Republican Party convention Banks was formally a no-nothing at least when he was elected in 1854 but when he started advocating the coalition of the two groups many no-nothings opposed him in 1855 the no-nothings officially named their party the American Party and they supported Henry Fuller as Speaker and probably what most cost them the dominant position is the new political party there were some Republicans who did not want to form a coalition with the no-nothings but more Republicans were willing to compromise the no-nothings so the new Republican Party attracted a good chunk of the no-nothing base and the rest of the no-nothings remained in the American Party which would run their own candidate in 1856 so this brings us finally back around to the election of 1856 which needs little detail that hasn't already been given the Democrats nominated James Buchanan who was willing to support the Kansas-Nebraska Act which was necessary for anybody to gain the support of the Southern Democrats he was however a practical candidate because he was out of the country serving as ambassador to Britain when the bill passed so he was able to avoid the controversy of the bill by recusing himself of any responsibility for it the Republicans of course did ultimately nominate John C. Vermont who was more of a moderate on slavery than some of the other potential nominees and the American Party nominated former President Millard Fillmore which was probably an unwise move on their part because of Fillmore's role in the Fugitive Slave Act which he signed into law as President in 1850 so he was obviously likely to alienate Northerners who were concerned about certain provisions in the law that I discussed a few episodes ago when the Republican Party established its new platform there were three broad issues it took a stand on the party would repeal the Kansas-Nebraska Act and any other law that would allow for the extension of slavery into new territories second, it would admit Kansas as a free state and finally the platform resolved to defeat President Pierce and the Democrats though of course Pierce would not actually end up being the Democratic nominee with the election of 1856 on the horizon the platform expanded the convention in Philadelphia that I mentioned in the opening anecdote took place in June and the platform committee was headed by former Democrat David Willmont the expanded platform addressed more than just slavery finally establishing a party that could appeal to more voters than just those of the previous Liberty and Free Soil parties the new platform of course did affirm the Free Soil position though as I said earlier it did explicitly support slavery where it existed and denied political rights to free blacks it retained its position on admitting Kansas as a free state but the platform now added a condemnation of the Austin Manifesto which called for the purchase of Cuba from Spain this was another popular position among pro-slavery Southerners who wanted to add Cuba as another slave state and I wasn't originally going to talk much about the Cuba question in this series but I think based on some comments I've seen online asking related questions in the episode after next I'm going to talk about Cuba a little bit more so I'm going to add that in here to give some background the Republican Party platform now also took stances on things that were not related to slavery it endorsed the Pacific Railroad and it also endorsed a ban on polygamy in the territories the position on polygamy was largely tactical the delegates were of course referring to the Mormons who had been settling the territory of Utah and agitating for their own recognition as a state they wanted statehood because it was a road to self-governance by the way since Congress has power over the territorial governments there was more popular opposition to polygamy throughout the country north and south than there was to slavery but the Republicans strategically associated polygamy in the territories with slavery in the territories the platform said that it was quote the right and imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism polygamy and slavery end quote the idea was to try to get voters to relate polygamy and slavery as the same issue the issue of popular sovereignty by catering to the more popular opposition to polygamy so if you supported popular sovereignty as many Democrats did you effectively must be endorsing polygamy at least that was the implication in the end of course the Democrats won the election they took the south entirely as well as a few northern states part of their strategy was to threaten secession if Vermont was elected and they also painted Vermont as a Catholic to try to alienate no nothings but this was a complete lie Vermont was a Protestant the American party won a single state, Maryland and the Republicans won 11 states all in the north but for a brand new party this was pretty amazing and the success of the new Republican party was enough for them to label the presidential race of Vermont as a victorious defeat when Buchanan gave his inaugural address he promised the people that the issue of slavery in the territories was quote a judicial question which legitimately belongs to the Supreme Court of the United States before human is now pending and will it is understood be speedily and finally settled to their decision in common with all good citizens I shall cheerfully submit end quote Buchanan of course was referring to the pending Supreme Court ruling regarding the status of a slave named Dred Scott before he gave his address Buchanan stopped and exchanged brief words with Chief Justice of the court Roger B. Taney nobody knows what Taney and Buchanan discussed but when the Supreme Court ruling was made public shortly after Buchanan's speech many Northerners were convinced that Taney shared with the president the ruling on the case the slave power many Northern voters concluded was now legislating from the bench of the highest court in the land and the ramifications of this ruling would be enormous the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford will be the subject of the next episode