Preface -- I. Leadership made to order -- Conservatives to the rescue ; Bewildering task ; Victory by a narrow margin -- Leadership fails -- Reorganizing the high command ; Re-forming the party ranks ; Territorial nightmares ; Lecompton fiasco ; Shadows over Congress ; Majority crumbles ; Power of money -- III. Demoralization and defeat -- Repudiation at the polls ; Runaway session ; State machines to the rescue -- IV. Cost of faction -- Rehearsing for Charleston ; Disruption of the democracy ; Everybody's plans go awry ; Congressional stalemate ; Campaign like none other ; Mounting the blue cockade -- V. Union falls with the party -- Peril of dissolution ; Weakness of divided counsels ; Reorganizing the administration ; Peace hangs by a thread ; Republic made to order ; Stalemate in Washington ; Last stand ; Clues -- Appendix : Slavery Pronouncement of the American Democracy, Cincinnati, 1856.
