The party was ultimately destroyed by the question of whether to allow the expansion of slavery to the territories. The anti-slavery faction successfully prevented the nomination of its own incumbent President Fillmore in the 1852 presidential election. Instead, the party nominated General Winfield Scott, who was defeated. Its leaders quit politics (as Lincoln did temporarily) or changed parties. The voter base defected to the Republican Party, various coalition parties in some states, and to the Democratic Party. By the 1856 presidential election, the party had lost its ability to maintain a national coalition of effective state parties and endorsed Millard Fillmore, now of the American Party, at its last national convention.