The story
In 1856 Democrat James Buchanan of Pennsylvania won the presidency with 174 electoral votes and about 45 percent of the popular vote. John C. Frémont, the explorer of the West and the first nominee of the new Republican Party, won 114 votes and about 33 percent, carrying 11 free states. Former President Millard Fillmore, running for the anti-immigrant American Party, better known as the Know-Nothings, won about 22 percent but only Maryland.
The election was fought in the shadow of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which let settlers in those territories decide on slavery and set off the violence known as Bleeding Kansas. In May 1856 South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks beat Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner with a cane on the Senate floor. Republicans, organized in 1854 to stop slavery's spread, campaigned with the slogan 'Free soil, free speech, free men, and Frémont.' Southern leaders warned that a Republican victory would mean disunion. Buchanan, who had been abroad as minister to Britain and so was untouched by the Kansas fight, won by holding the South and five free states. Two days after his inauguration the Supreme Court issued its Dred Scott decision.
Why it mattered
- Showed that the Republicans could become a major party in two years by winning most of the North.
- Put Buchanan in office during the Dred Scott decision and the fight over Kansas's proslavery constitution.
- Set up 1860, when the Republicans needed only a few more Northern states to win.
Sources
- 1856 Electoral College Results National Archives
- President James Buchanan directly influenced outcome of Dred Scott decision Smithsonian Magazine
Drafted by AI (Claude) from the sources above and checked against them by AI; no historian has reviewed this page. Spot a mistake? Suggest a correction. How pages are made
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