triotism and sense enough left in the country to avoid it. Mark me, when I repeat that in less than twelve months we shall be in the midst of a bloody war. What is to become of us then God only knows. The Union will certainly be disrupted."' On the 9th of May, the remnant of old-line Whigs and Americans calling themselves the Constitutional Union party met in convention at Baltimore. It was a highly respectable body, and not to be despised in point of ability. An absence of the younger men was noticeable. The delegates were, for the most part, venerable men who had come down from a former generation of politicians, and who, alarmed at the growth and bitterness of the sectional controversy, had met together to see if their efforts might avail something to save the endangered Union. A patriotic spirit inspired the assemblage. Fully recognizing the impending peril of the country, their action, from their point of view, was calculated to allay the trouble. But their remedy for the sore was a plaster, when it rather needed cauterization. Their platform was: "The Constitution of the country, the union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws;" and they nominated-For President, Bell, of Tennessee; and for Vice-President, Everett, of Massachusetts; men of honesty and experience, who were a fit expression of the patriotic and conservative sentiments animating a large number of citizens that looked to this convention for guidance.' The contest at Charleston was now transferred to the floor of the Senate, where the principals could speak in perJefferson Davis, with an arrogant manner' all his son. 'This remarkable conversation is given by Johnston and Browne, p. 355. 2 See National Political Conventions of 1860, Halstead; the New York Tribune. One gets a good idea of the spirit animating this party from the confidential correspondence of Crittenden, see Life, by Coleman, vol. ii. pp. 182 to 212. "Public sentiment proclaims that the most arrogant man in the own, asserted: "We claim protection [for slavery in the territories], first, because it is our right; secondly, because it is the duty of the general government;" and he demanded, What right has Congress to abdicate any power conferred upon it as trustee of the States? But we make you no threat, he said; we only give you a warning.' Douglas, in replying to Davis several days later, took occasion to explain his position in reference to the Democratic convention. "My name never would have been presented at Charleston," said he, "except for the attempt to proscribe me as a heretic, too unsound to be the chairman of a committee in this body, where I have held a seat for so many years without a suspicion resting on my political fidelity. I was forced to allow my name to go there in self-defence; and I will now say that had any gentleman, friend or foe, received a majority of that convention over me, the lightning would have carried a message withdrawing my name." Douglas intimated that Yancey and his followers had begun in 1858 to plan disunion, and that the secession movement at Charleston was their first overt act. The Davis resolutions in the Senate were substantially the Yancey platform of Charleston, and while senators who advocated them might not mean disunion, those principles insisted upon "will lead directly and inevitably to a dissolution of the Union." On the 17th of May, a heated debate between Douglas and Davis took place, which at the end was attended with personalities. "I have a declining respect for platforms," Davis said. "I would sooner have an honest man on any sort of a rickety platform you could construct than to have a man I did not trust on the best platform which could be United States Senate is Jefferson Davis. Nor does there seem to be much doubt that in debate he is the most insolent and insufferable. The offence consists not so much in the words used as in the air and mien which he assumes towards opponents."-Editorial, New York Tribune, April 14th. Davis made an elaborate speech May 7th. 2 Speech of Douglas, May 16th. made." "If the platform is not a matter of much consequence," demanded Douglas, "why press that question to the disruption of the party? Why did you not tell us in the beginning of this debate that the whole fight was against the man and not upon the platform?" After several days a vote on the Davis resolution was reached, and though the phraseology of the crucial proposition had been changed, its essence was the same as when originally introduced.1 Every Democratic senator but Pugh' voted for it; but the appearance of harmony was illusory, for the position of Douglas and Pugh had more Democratic adherents among the people than the Davis resolution could muster. While Douglas and Davis were wrangling in the Senate, the Republicans were holding their convention at Chicago. It was fitting that the party, that had its origin in the Northwest, should now meet in the typical city, which, with a population of little more than one hundred thousand, had already made the word Chicago synonymous with that of progress. Six slave States-Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Texas-were represented, and four hundred and sixty-six delegates made up the convention. They met in a "wigwam" built for the occasion, which, it was said, would hold ten thousand people. By the second day of the convention thirty thousand to forty thousand strangers, mostly from the Northwest, had flocked to the city, eager to be associated with the great historic event that was promised, and thinking perhaps to affect the result by their presence and their shouts. For since the disruption of the Charleston convention the Republicans had felt that if they took advantage of the situation, they would 2 1 See p. 430. Douglas was not present. The building called a wigwam was a temporary frame structure, and the name is still applied in Western cities by Republicans to buildings used for party purposes. 4 * Nicolay and Hay, vol. ii. p. 264; National Political Conventions, Halstead, p. 140. surely elect their candidate for the presidency. Victory was in the air, and office-seekers, who, since 1858, had formed a noticeable part of the Republican organization,' were now on hand in number, for the purpose of making prominent their devotion to the party and its principles. The contrast between this and the national convention of 1856 is worthy of remark. Then a hall accommodating two thousand was quite sufficient, now a wigwam holding ten thousand was jammed, and twenty thousand people outside clamored for admittance; then the wire-pullers looked askance at a movement whose success was problematical, now they hastened to identify themselves with a party that apparently had the game in its own hand; then the delegates were liberty-loving enthusiasts and largely volunteers, now the delegates had been chosen by means of the organization peculiar to a powerful party, and in political wisdom were the pick of the Republicans; then the contest to follow seemed but a tentative effort and the leading men would not accept the nomination, while now triumph appeared so sure that every one of the master spirits of the party was eager to be the candidate. And the most potent cause of this change was the split in the Democratic party, which began with the refusal of Douglas to submit to Southern dictation. "The convention is very like the old Democratic article," wrote an observer; and he has also told the tale of the bibulous propensities of the outsiders who had come to exert a pressure in favor of Seward or Lincoln. Though a Republican himself, he was forced to confess that greater sobriety had characterized the assemblage at Charleston.' No convention had ever attracted such a crowd of lookerson. Never before had there been such systematic efforts to create an opinion that the people demanded this or that candidate. Organized bodies of men were sent out day and 1 See Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 230. night to make street demonstrations for their favorite, or were collected to pack the audience-room in the convention. hall, so that vociferous cheers might greet each mention of his name. These procedures were very different from those of similar Whig gatherings heretofore, which had been marked by respectability and decorum. Before Lincoln made his Cooper Institute speech, the mention of his name as a possible nominee for President by the Chicago convention would have been considered a joke anywhere except in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Iowa. That New York address, however, had gained him many friends, among whom was William Cullen Bryant.' His speeches in New England that followed made it patent at the East that he might become a formidable opponent of Seward. The reception he had in New York and New England convinced Lincoln himself that the Chicago nomination was attainable, and, ceasing to take interest in his law practice, he set himself at work to secure the prize. An acute observer of the drift of opinion, a good judge of men in the face of large events, Lincoln was clumsy in the attempt to manipulate a delegation and awkward in the use of money to promote his candidacy.' The movement in Illinois, which had been growing since the debates of 1858, culminated in giving him a most enthusiastic endorsement at the State convention held at Decatur the 9th of May. Lincoln himself was present, and John Hanks marched in among the crowd in the wigwam, bearing on his shoulder the two historic rails, on which was inscribed: "From a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks in the Sangamon bottom in the year 1830." Loud and prolonged cheers bore testimony to the effect of this manoeuvre. The following week at Chicago the continued hurrahs for "honest old Abe, the rail-splitter," told the Seward men of unlooked-for strength in one of the competitors for the nomination. Life by Godwin, vol. ii. p. 123. 2 Herndon, p. 457. |