had passed and the Southern leaders under Yancey were prolonging the sessions only to confuse the free State delegates, Payne of Ohio made the motion to substitute the minority report for the majority one. He held the floor, and refused further delay. The Southern men fought against it for awhile; but the delegates were all tired out, the presiding officer more than any of them. Payne kept the floor, and contended resolutely against all delays until his demand was sustained; and the minority report, the one of the Douglas Democracy, was adopted by the clear and distinct vote of 165 to 138, a majority of twenty-seven for it, with every delegate voting in a Convention where they had wrangled continuously night and day for a week, and so many were ailing and sick.

This vote, rejecting the majority report, brought the event which Yancey and his fiery hotspurs had repeatedly declared, would cause them to leave the Convention. But to the astonishment of every one, after its passage quiet prevailed as it had not done since the first roll-call. Yancey and his contingent that sat together and acted as a unit under him, appeared as if stunned and confounded. Nobody wanted them to go at that stage, and all except themselves wondered why they did not go, as they had so often threatened they would.

At this moment in the dead calm of the stormtossed assemblage, Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, the same who was on more sides of every political question and party than any other American citizen ever was, except Cushing, took advantage of the moment's calm before the approaching storm to move the adoption of the Cincinnati platform without change. This was done without debate. The effect of this did not change anything, as the platform of the minority report included it, and nothing of the minority report was changed or rescinded by the adoption of Butler's resolution, which in effect readopted it.

This move of Butler's was made by the Northern proslavery delegates, in the interest of sustaining Buchanan's Administration, and as a sort of peace offering on their part. They were there, some twenty or more of them, under the direction of Butler and Cushing, and while they were superserviceable in the cause of slavery, as far as they could be, they were not going to walk out with Yancey and his madcaps of the Gulf States.

Hence they concluded to take the time and the opportunity by the forelock, readopt the old platform, nominate some one, any one, for they could not miss it much on anybody, as a weaker character than Buchanan could not have been found again; perhaps they might even have renominated and repainted the old figure of a man, so that he could last through another campaign as he had lasted so unexpectedly in 1856.

Butler was full of resources, and shifty in the worst turmoil and confusion of men. Cushing was as cunning as Butler was adroit, and always ready. They conjured but never disclosed its object in that mêlée and uproar of men. They evidently believed that the bringing out of "Old Buck" for another four years might take as a diversion; at least they thought the effort was worth trying, and they tried it, with no perceptible result.

Butler's resolution carried without debate, having two hundred and thirty-seven against sixty-five votes. Instead of pacifying and stilling the angry tempest that had lashed and kept them in the seven days' fury, Yancey and his men took this at once as their long-threatened opportunity, raised the red flag of rebellion, and with the delegates from Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas, walked out of the Convention, divided the party that had done nothing but favor and protect them for over thirty years, and now, when it would not, and could not, serve them and their cursed system any longer, they turned

in their wrath, and gnashing their teeth in defiance, divided it. Henceforward they planned the Nation's destruction.

After the delegates of the seven cotton States seceded, Mr. Douglas could have been almost unanimously nominated by the remaining two-thirds or more of the delegates. At least he could have been by a two-thirds' vote, but the longstanding traditional rule requiring this was generously held to include two-thirds of all the delegates elected, even those who voluntarily surrendered their rights. This would have required two hundred and two of the three hundred and three votes. The Convention continued in session until the third of May. Douglas's vote was 152.

Cushing held his place as chairman, and with the Administration Democrats he still held control of all the offices and committees, and kept up uninterrupted, friendly relations with Yancey and his seceders. Although the Douglas Democrats had a large working majority, Cushing's control kept them at a decided disadvantage. They cast several hundred ballots with no progress and no result, except to emphasize the determined revolt against the Southern leaders. On the third of May, the tenth day, they adjourned to meet in Baltimore, June 18th.

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CHAPTER XXXIX.

HE withdrawal of Yancey and his excited delegates did not remove them from participation and effect upon the doings of the Convention, as much as their changed relation required. They were still counted as members on every roll-call and on all the vital concerns, in the nomination of candidates and the conduct of business. They remained in the town, and were in full consultation with Cushing, Buchanan's postmasters, and other favored officeholders. By Cushing's ruling and counting absent members, the seceders were still in the way as much as ever; and, to the full extent of their opportunities, they delayed action by this maneuvering as effectually as before the secession. They had not gone out on an honest separation and disagreement, to leave the regular body free to reach harmonious conclusions, but retired with their faction on a threat. They remained on the field, in full sympathy and collusion with those in control of the Convention. They expected to compass the complete overthrow of Douglas, disperse his delegates, and proceed to the suppression of his free State Democracy.

On leaving, the seceders made some temporary kind of organization, and adjourned to meet in Richmond the following month; but remained in Charleston, to be near Mr. Cushing and to advise with him. Both were within easy reach and under the chief control of Jefferson Davis at Washington. In the emergency the Douglas Democrats should have reorganized the Convention at once; but like most of the fairminded free State people, they yielded everything of that kind, in hope of possible settlement, rather than believe in or

resort to warlike preparations, as these seceders were busy doing at the time. Following their withdrawal, so as to harass the regular Convention in every possible way, when they met in Richmond they adjourned again to meet in Baltimore, on the 18th of June, the time and place to which the regular Convention adjourned.

On this bursting up at Charleston the contest was transferred to the United States Senate for the time, where Jefferson Davis and his supporting conspirators renewed the dispute in the form of resolutions for discussion. The two principal ones declared "That neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature, whether by direct legislation or that of indirect and unfriendly character, possesses power to annul or impair the constitutional right of any citizen to take his slave property into the common Territories, and there hold and enjoy the same while the Territorial conditions remain." And "That if experience should at any time prove that the Judiciary and Executive authority do not possess means to insure adequate protection to constitutional rights in a Territory, and if the Territorial Government shall fail or refuse to provide the necessary remedies for that purpose, it will be the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency.”

These declaratory resolutions had been introduced the previous February, where they were at hand in the event that the Convention at Charleston should not adopt the slaveleaders' creed. They were resuscitated soon afterward, declared the doctrine of the Democratic party as stated by the Senate, passed and promulgated, ex-cathedra, as the edict, rule, and inviolable doctrine of the Southern conspiracy.

Senator Douglas promptly objected to their passage, both as to the matters contained as virtually the same as the resolutions so recently rejected by the National Convention of the party; and because of the impropriety and reversal of the usages and precedents of the Democratic party, and so far of all our parties, holding it to be usurpation and arrogant