Compared with this his Lecompton revolt had been a venial offense.

In that case he had merely contended for the machinery of a fair popular vote.

This was the avowal of a principle as obnoxious to the slavery propaganda as the unqualified abolitionism of Giddings and Lovejoy.

Henceforth all hope of reconciliation, atonement, or chance of Presidential nomination by the united Democratic party was out of the question.

Before this, newspaper zealots had indeed denounced him for his Lecompton recusancy as a traitor and renegade, and the Administration had endeavored to secure his defeat; now, however, in addition, the party high-priests put him under solemn ban of excommunication.