text: Frémont and William Dayton comprised the ticket, which Lincoln supported throughout Illinois.The Democrats nominated former Secretary of State James Buchanan and the Know-Nothings nominated former Whig President Millard Fillmore.Buchanan prevailed, while Republican William Henry Bissell won election as Governor of Illinois, and Lincoln became a leading Republican in Illinois.Dred Scott v.Sandford Dred Scott was a slave whose master took him from a slave state to a territory that was free as a result of the Missouri Compromise.After Scott was returned to the slave state, he petitioned a federal court for his freedom.His petition was denied in Dred Scott v.Sandford (1857).In his opinion, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B.Taney wrote that black people were not citizens and derived no rights from the Constitution, and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional for infringing upon slave owners' "property" rights.While many Democrats hoped that Dred Scott would end the dispute over slavery in the territories, the decision sparked further outrage in the North.Lincoln denounced it as the product of a conspiracy of Democrats to support the Slave Power.He argued the decision was at variance with the Declaration of Independence; he said that while the founding fathers did not believe all men equal in every respect, they believed all men were equal "in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".Lincoln–Douglas debates and Cooper Union speech In 1858, Douglas was up for re-election in the U.S.Senate, and Lincoln hoped to defeat him.Many in the party felt that a former Whig should be nominated in 1858, and Lincoln's 1856 campaigning and support of Trumbull had earned him a favor.Some eastern Republicans supported Douglas for his opposition to the Lecompton Constitution and admission of Kansas as a slave state.Many Illinois Republicans resented this eastern interference.