Scarce first printing of one of the most auspicious pronouncements of the 1856 presidential election, in which Lincoln's future Vice President joins the Republican Party. For 13 years, Senator Hannibal Hamlin had been elected to Congress as a Democrat. But after the Democratic Convention in Cincinnati nominated Buchanan on a platform that supported the right of any state to accept slavery, Hamlin declared in the Senate: "I can maintain political associations with no party that insists upon such doctrines...I can support no man for President who avows and recognizes them…” A week later, after the Republican Convention nominated Fremont on an anti-slavery platform. Hamlin became a Republican and his new Party distributed this speech with a new title "Senator Hamlin's Withdrawal from the Democratic Party". While Hamlin returned to the Senate, Fremont was defeated by Buchanan. But the campaign set the stage, four years later, for the Republican presidential nomination of Abraham Lincoln - who chose Hannibal Hamlin as his running mate.