The campaign that had just closed had been characterized by a high order of discussion, and it was also emphatically a reading campaign.

The new Republican party planted itself squarely on the principles enunciated by Thomas Jefferson, the reputed founder of the old Republican party.

They went back to the policy of the fathers, whose words on the subject of slavery they eagerly read.

From this source also came the chief material for their public addresses.
To the common man who was thus indoctrinated, the Chief Justice, in describing the sentiments of the fathers respecting slavery, appeared to be doing what Horace Greeley was wont to describe as "saying a thing and being conscious while saying it that the thing is not true." The Dred Scott decision laid the Republicans open to the charge of seeking by unlawful means to deprive slaveowners of their rights, and it was to the partizan interest of the Democrats to stand by the Court and thus discredit their opponents.

This action tended to carry the entire Democratic party to the support of Calhoun's extreme position on the slavery question.