1856
James Buchanan and the 1856 map
Democrat James Buchanan won over the new Republican Party's first presidential candidate, John C. Frémont. The American (Know-Nothing) Party ran former president Millard Fillmore, who won Maryland but drew significant votes nationally. The Republicans ran on the anti-slavery-expansion slogan 'Free soil, free speech, free men, Frémont' and showed impressive strength in the North despite losing. Buchanan's failure to resolve the slavery crisis would push the nation toward civil war.
Bleeding Kansas; slavery expansion; nativist immigration concerns
First Republican presidential candidate ran; Know-Nothing Party won Maryland's electoral votes
States · 31 reporting
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