Telegraphs and railroads were being rapidly constructed, thus bringing widely separated localities into close communication.

The unsettled condition of Europe and the famine in Ireland had turned toward America that tremendous tide of immigration which this year had risen to 300,000.

The admission of Texas into the Union had precipitated the full force of the slavery question.

Old parties were disintegrating and sectional lines becoming closely drawn.

New territories were knocking at the door of the Union and the whole nation was in a ferment as to whether they should be slave or free.