finally successful in forming and adopting a State government: but outrages are numberless, resulting in civil war in that territory; and their representative to Washington is rejected. Nathaniel P. Banks, after an exciting contest, is elected speaker of the Thirty-fourth Congress. In 1855, Henry Wilson succeeds Edward Everett in the Senate. In 1856, Anson Burlingame succeeds William Appleton in the House. May 2, 1856, Charles Sumner is brutally assaulted in the Capitol by Brooks of South Carolina for words spoken in debate. The entire country is again aroused. William Lloyd Garrison favors the Republican party. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher recommends Sharp's rifles, as well as Bibles, for Kansas. The American party asserts that "Americans shall rule America." The three candidates for the Presidency are James Buchanan, Democrat; John C. Frémont, Republican; Ex-President Millard Fillmore, American. Buchanan is elected. James 1856.-Extract from the Annual Message Vio of of Pres. Pierce: "Extremes beget extremes. lent attack from the North finds its inevitable consequence in the growth of a spirit of angry defiance at the South. Thus, in the progress events, we have reached that consummation, which the voice of the people has now so pointedly rebuked, of the attempt of a portion of the States, by a sectional organization and movement, to usurp the control of the government of the United States. - "FRANKLIN PIERCE." PRESIDENT: JAMES BUCHANAN, PENNSYLVANIA. VICE-PRESIDENT: JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE, KENTUCKY. SECRETARIES OF STATE: 1857.- -LEWIS CASS, Michigan. SECRETARIES OF THE TREASURY: 1857. HOWELL COBB, Georgia. SECRETARIES OF WAR: 1857.JOHN B. FLOYD, Virginia. 1861. SECRETARY OF THE NAVY: 1857. ISAAC TOUCEY, Connecticut. SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 1857.-JACOB THOMPSON, Mississippi. POSTMASTERS-GENERAL: 1857.- -AARON V. BROWN, Tennessee. 1859. 1861. HORATIO KING, Maine. ATTORNEYS-GENERAL: 1857.JEREMIAH S. BLACK, Pennsylvania. CONTEMPORANEOUS ENGLISH HISTORY. Reign. Victoria. Premier. Lord Palmerston, to 1858. Earl of Derby, 1859. Lord Palmerston, 1861. Indian Mutiny. Chinese War. Reform Bill. Commercial crisis, 1857. Religious revival. After a struggle of eight years, Lord John Russell obtains a bill enabling Jews to sit in Parliament; and Baron Rothschild is admitted July 26, 1858. France and Austria at war from May to July, 1859, about Austrian dominion in Piedmont. Cotton famine on account of the Rebellion in America. PRINCIPAL EVENTS.- Chief Justice Taney decides, in the Dred Scott case, that the Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional. The proslavery and antislavery parties, the former re-asserting that "slavery is a divinely-appointed institution," are again intensely agitated. Personal-liberty laws are passed in the free States to counteract the operation of the Fugitive-slave Law. Kansas-Nebraska matters continue vexatious beyond expression. Entire families with Northern sentiments are massacred; and party-disputes are settled by the pistol and bowie-knife. John Brown and twenty associates, driven to desperation, on the night of Oct. 16, 1859, rashly seize the United-States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Va., with a view to obtaining arms to liberate slaves. They are overpowered by Col. Robert E. Lee; thirteen being killed during the affray; two escape; and six, including their leader, are tried, condemned, and executed in Charleston, Va. Added to these distresses, commercial and financial disasters visit the great mercantile centres of the country, commencing in 1857, producing a wonderful revival of religion in New York and elsewhere. The Fulton-street "Business-Men's Noonday Prayer-Meeting" is organized during the crisis. New political questions are raised, resulting in the nomination of four distinct party-candidates for the Presidency. The Republicans nominate Abraham Lincoln' of Illinois. The Democrats have two candidates; viz., Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, and John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. The Union party nominate John Bell of Tennessee. Upon the election of Abraham Lincoln, in the autumn of 1860, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas join in secession from the Union; and, a few months later, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina, follow them. The first six combined form a confederacy of the South at Montgomery, Ala., Feb. 8, 1861, called the Confederate States of America; elect Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, President; Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, Vice-President; and, before Lincoln is inaugurated President of the United States, commence war upon the Federal Government, seizing treasury-funds, munitions of war, custom-houses, ships, and forts, and robbing the country generally. "Sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion" rule in the South; and "confusion worse confounded" reigns at Washington. Treason is suspected everywhere; the majority of the Buchanan cabinet resign; Southern members leave their seats in Congress; and, on his way to the capital, Abraham Lincoln, the President-elect, is obliged to be attended by a body-guard. Meantime, in January, 1861, the steamship "Star of the West," unarmed, on her way with troops and provisions to Fort Sumter, in Charleston (South Carolina) harbor, is fired upon by a rebel battery, and forced to return to New York. But Lincoln is finally inaugurated President. Minnesota is admitted in 1858; Oregon, in 1859; and, after a four-years' war, Kansas, in 1861. 1857. Extracts from the Inaugural Address: "I feel a humble confidence that the kind Providence which inspired our fathers with wisdom to frame the most perfect form of govern |