Fish's record in office at both the state and national levels was unremarkable. He did not play a significant role in the debates over the expansion of slavery that commenced with the introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. When William Henry Seward led many of the state's Whigs into the ranks of the forming Republican coalition in 1855, Fish did not follow, struggling instead to revive the moribund Whig organization. He reluctantly supported the Republicans the following year but felt uncomfortable with the moral intensity of the party's position on slavery.

Seth H. Yocum was born in Catawissa, Columbia County, Pennsylvania on August 2, 1834.  He was educated in rural schools and then went to Philadelphia to learn the printing and editing trade.  Yocum entered the class of 1860 at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  He was a member of the Phi Kappa Pse fraternity and graduated with his class in the early summer of 1860.  He then returned to Philadelphia, where he was employed as an editor.

Like his father, Boudinot was drawn to newspaper work, taking the editorship first of the Fayetteville Weekly Arkansian and then of the Little Rock True Democrat in 1860. Boudinot also became involved in Democratic and Confederate politics during this period, becoming chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee in 1860 and secretary of the Secession Convention the following year.