Studies in American History 
449 
aside from the German counties, was practically a unit for 
Fremont.^®® Only 3 counties outside of the foreign areas went 
Democratic, making a total of 11. All 3 successful Congress- 
men were Republicans, and for the first time Wisconsin had 
a real Anti-Democratic legislature.^®® Michigan’s decision 
was the same as Wisconsin’s,^^® but the vote was not compli- 
cated by either the American question or the presence of Ger- 
mans in preponderant groups. All 4 Congressmen and the 
legislature fell to the Republicans. 
The Republican party had won the Northwest, but at a cost 
of sectional division within the area. The total vote was 
Fremont, 515,914; Buchanan, 499,876; Fillmore, 90,195. In 
3 of the states the Democrats had been reduced to a minor- 
ity, while Indiana gave a majority for Buchanan and Illinois 
a substantial plurality. The American vote in these two states 
constituted 9 and 15 per cent respectively, of the total,^^^ and 
represented not so much a belief in the principles of the 
American party as an inability on the part of many former 
Whigs to follow the Republican party in its change from mere 
opposition to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise to active 
opposition to slavery extension, and of the unwillingness of 
many Democrats, tho disgusted with the new Democracy, to 
go over to the Republican side. The American party also in- 
cluded most of those who deprecated the agitation of the 
slavery question and feared to witness the victory of a sec- 
tional party.^^^ Maps of the presidential election returns show 
the sectionalism within the Northwest roughly outlined, while 
those of the Congressional election show it as it was to be when 
finally consolidated. Ohio, with the more varied elements of 
population and diverse paths of settlement, presented the 
most confused pattern, but on the whole the different sections 
of the state ran true to their inheritance. The same was 
true of Indiana. The dividing line was distinct in Illinois 
and changed but little during the next four years. The Re- 
publican party was sectional and sectional within a section, 
108 Fremont, 66,090 ; Buchanan, 52,843 ; Fillmore, 579. 
109 “'w/'e have been much deceived”, wrote the Argus after the election, “We have 
met the enemy and we are theirs.” 
110 Fremont, 71,762 ; Buchanan, 52,139 ; Fillmore, 16,660. 
In Ohio it was 7 per cent; in Wisconsin, 11/3 per cent; and in Michigan, less 
than % of 1 per cent. 
The Louisville Journal, a southern “American” paper, held that the Fillmore 
party in Indiana performed a service in defeating a sectional party, and many Ameri- 
cans in Indiana agreed, Indianapolis Daily Journal, November 14, 1856. 
