Thus an angry element was superadded for personal prejudice and effective agitation.

Yet Mr.Wilmot was disastrously beaten by the Democratic candidate, Governor Parker, the adverse majority reaching indeed tens of thousands.
The crushing Republican defeat received in the person of Wilmot occurred on the very eve of the financial distress of 1857.

The Democratic canvass had been made while there was yet no suspicion of impending panic and revulsion,--made indeed with constant boasts of the general prosperity and with constant ascription of that prosperity to the well-defined and long-continued policy of the Democratic party.

From that time the Democratic party became embarrassed in Pennsylvania.

With a tariff of their own making, with a President of their own choice, with both branches of Congress and every department of the government under their control, a serious disaster had come upon the country.