The Whig party was passing into decrepitude. The measures it had advocated—the United States Bank, the tariff, and internal improvements—were no longer of the highest importance in the eyes of the people.

The Whigs had been badly beaten in 1852. Those opposed to the Democratic party felt obliged to take new ground. A party was founded in 1853, which proposed to keep foreigners out of office and to make them wait a longer term before becoming citizens. This new party was the "American party." Its members were organized in secret lodges, and it carried many elections by surprise. To all questions about its doings the members of this order answered, "I don't know." From this arose the name "Know-Nothing," which was commonly applied to the party. It spread rapidly for two or three years, but died as quickly as it had come into life, for the slavery question took a new form, which left no room for any other debate.

This new form was brought about by the bill organizing the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas, introduced in 1854 by Senator Douglas, of Illinois. This bill repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had been adopted in 1820. By that compromise slavery had been forbidden in all new territory north of latitude thirty-six decrees and a half. Kansas and Nebraska were on the north side of this line. The "Nebraska Bill," as it was called, repealed this restriction, and left it for the settlers in the new territory to decide the question of slavery for themselves. This was called "Squatter Sovereignty" in the discussions of the time.

The excitement over the repeal of the Missouri Compromise exceeded any ever before known in this country. Many people in the North regarded it as an act of bad faith. People in the South claimed that they had an equal right with free-state people to take their property of every kind to the new Territories. Both sides became exceedingly violent. As President Pierce favored the Nebraska Bill, those Whigs who took the same side generally went over to the Democratic party, while those opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, whether Whigs or Democrats, united, and, with the old Free-Soil party, formed an "Anti-Nebraska party." This presently took the name "Republican," but it is not to be confounded with the old Republican party of the days of Jefferson.

Meantime the great struggle between the two sections had been transferred to the new Territory of Kansas. This lay directly west of Missouri, and a strong effort was made to secure it, both by the North and the South. Emigrants poured in from both sides of the line between the free and the slave states. Societies were formed at the North to promote emigration, and in Missouri to keep emigrants from the free states away. Many free-state people were stopped and turned back on the Missouri River. The free-state people and the slave-state people now came into collision on the Kansas prairies. People from Missouri assisted the Southern party. Rival governments were formed. Kansas soon became the scene of a violent struggle. Midnight assassinations and mobs were common, and something like open war broke out from time to time. The people from the Northern States soon had a majority, and asked admission to the Union. The bloody feud in Kansas by this time produced the greatest excitement in Congress and convulsed the whole country.

While the people were in this state of passionate excitement about the struggle in Kansas, the presidential canvass of 1856 came on. The Democrats nominated James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania; the new Republican party nominated John C. Fremont, who had become known as a daring explorer in the Western plains, and who had taken part in the conquest of California. The American, or Know-nothing, party nominated ex-President Millard Fillmore. Buchanan, the Democratic candidate, was elected. Fillmore got but eight electoral votes, Fremont one hundred and fourteen, and Buchanan one hundred and seventy-four. The election showed that the people were interested in nothing but the settlement of the slavery question. No presidential election had ever before turned wholly or chiefly on this question.

The Supreme Court of the United States now attempted to settle the question of slavery in the Territories, and thus take it out of politics. In the spring of 1857, in the case of a black person named Dred Scott, who sued for his freedom on the ground that his slaveholder had taken him to a free State, the Supreme Court decided that the African whose ancestors had been slaves had no rights under the Constitution, and that Congress had no power to forbid slavery in the Territories. So, far from settling the question, this decision proved to be oil on the fire. The North now feared that slavery would be made national by a decision of the Supreme Court.

In 1859 John Brown, who had borne a conspicuous part as a free-state person in the murderous feuds of the Kansas struggle, seized the United States armory at Harper's Ferry, in the mountains of Virginia, and undertook to liberate the slaves. As he had but eighteen soldiers under his command, he was soon overcome. He was tried and executed, but this raid alarmed the South more than the Dred Scott decision had the North. People at the South began to fear that the Northern people were trying to arm the slaves for the murder of their slaveholders.

The excitement over the subject of slavery had already divided into two parts nearly all the great religious denominations, and had destroyed the Whig party. In 1860 it divided the Democratic party The majority in the convention of the party nominated Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, the author of the Nebraska Bill. The Democrats who adhered most strongly to the South put forward John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. The Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois. The Constitutional Union party, as it was called, which desired to make peace between the angry sections, nominated John Bell, of Tennessee. Lincoln was elected. We have now reached the point where the angry debate between the North and the South was at last about to break into a long and terrible war.

One element in the political jealousies of this excited time was the increase of free states. Minnesota was admitted in 1858, Oregon in 1859, and Kansas soon after the election of Lincoln, in 1861. These were all free states. There was now no territory left at the South from which new slave states could be made.