CHAPTER XV. Instructions to Alabama Delegates-Action of the Alabama Legislature-Views of Forsyth, White and OthersMeeting of the Charleston Convention-Yancey's Great Address Withdrawal of Southern Delegates-Position of Political Parties-Yancey at Baltimore-He is Offered the Vice-Presidency-Nomination of Breckinridge, Etc., Etc. "The Republican party is a conspiracy, under the forms, but in violation of the spirit of the Constitution of the United States to exclude the citizens of the slave-holding States from all share in the government of the country, and to compel them to adapt their institutions to the opinions of citizens of free States."-[Speech of Judge Wm. Duer, of N. Y., at Oswego, Aug. 6, 1860. "Remember, in addition to this, that the leading Abolitionists acknowledged no law which might stand in the way of their interests or their passions. Against anybody else the Constitution of the country would have been a protection. But they disregarded its limitations, and had no scruples about swearing to support it with a predetermination to violate it. We had been well warned by all the men best entitled to our confidence-particularly and eloquently warned by Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster-that if ever the Abolitionists got a hold upon the organized physical force of the country, they would govern without law, scoff at the authority of the courts, and throw down all the defences of civil liberty." (Judge JERE 8. BLACK.] On the eleventh day of January, 1860, the Democratic party of Alabama met in Convention at Montgomery and adopted, with singular unanimity, a series of resolutions declaring that the principles recognized by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, should be maintained by the South; that their delegates to the approaching National Democratic Convention at Charleston, should present these resolutions for the adoption of that body: that they insist upon the adop tion of the resolutions in substance; and that if they should not be adopted the delegates must withdraw. It was provided that in case of the withdrawal of the delegates, the Executive Committee should call the State Convention together to take action as to their next step. r. YANCEY was a leading spirit in this Convention. After twelve years he had succeeded in bringing his party firmly to the support of the Calhoun resolutions of 1848. Gen. CASS had evaded the issue then. Gen. PIERCE, in 1852, had been elected upon the Compromise measures, and the Calhoun pronunciamento at that time seemed almost forgotten. In 1856 Mr. BuCHANAN had also evaded the issue, under the doubtful language of the Cincinnati Convention; but now in 1860 the Supreme Court had recognized the justice of Mr. CALHOUN's position; had vindicated the principles of Mr. YANCEY; and the people of the South, irrespective of party, however great the difference among them upon mere questions of policy, acknowledged the justice of the claims preferred by the Democratic State Convention of Alabama. On the 24th of February, 1860, the Alabama Legislature, with but two dissenting voices, adopted joint resolutions declaring that, whereas, a sectional party calling itself Republican, committed alike by its own acts and antecedents, and the public avowals and secret machinations of its leaders to a deadly hostility to the rights of the Southern people, has acquired the ascendency in nearly every Northern State, and hopes by success in the approaching Presidential election to seize the Government itself, therefore it shall be the duty of the Governor, upon the success of that party in the election, to call together a State Convention to consider, determine, and do whatever, in the opinion of said Convention, the rights, interests and honor of Alabama may require to be done for her protection. The resolutions also declared that it was the solemn duty of the people not "to permit such seizure (of the "Government) by those whose unmistakable aim is to pervert its whole machinery to the destruction of a 'portion of its members," but "to provide in advance "the means by which they may escape such peril and dishonor, and devise new securities for perpetuating "the blessings of liberty to themselves and posterity." 66 At a later day in their session, the General Assembly replied to resolutions forwarded from South Carolina, that Alabama had declared that under no circumstances would she submit to the foul domination of a sectional Northern party, and had called for a State Convention, and had provided money for military contingencies in the event of the triumph of the Republican party in the Presidential election. The unanimity with which these resolutions were adopted was not due to a unanimous purpose to break up the Union in the event of a constitutional election of a Republican to the Presidency, for during the ensuing campaign many leading speakers from the hustings advised against disunion until the commission of an unconstitutional act, or, as it was called by some, an overt act, by a Republican administration; and very many others, constituting it was claimed a majority of the people of Alabama, contended that disunion should not be attempted by separate State action, but that the question should be submitted to a Congress of all the Southern States, a majority of which Congress Mr. YANCEY, in his letter to Mr. PRYOR, had clearly shown would be opposed to secession in any form. The instructions to the Democratic delegates to withdraw from the Charleston Convention unless the construction given by the Supreme Court to the territorial question was recognized, were voted for by many simply as a threat, and with the purpose of intimidating the National Convention. It was supposed that a proposition coming in the shape of a demand from a united South, and coupled with a threat of ruin in the event of its refusal, would so operate upon the fears of those who could not afford to lose the electoral votes of the Southern States, as to secure its recognition. The same threat was made by the Democratic State Convention of Alabama in 1848, at the instigation of Mr. YANCEY, but the party had not considered itself bound by the threat after the nomination of Gen. CASS. So now, many of the surging mass who composed the State Convention, in voting for the resolution of withdrawal, were more intent upon terrifying their Northern associates than upon actually breaking up the only national party in existence. As there were many who voted for the withdrawal with no expectation or desire that it would take place, so there were many who, while willing for the withdrawal in the event contemplated, were honestly of the opinion that such withdrawal would neither break up the Democratic party nor the Union. Men of this latter class argued that the nominee of the withdrawing States, comprising three-fourths or more of those which would certainly cast their electoral votes for a Democratic candidate, might be finally recognized as the legitimate candidate by the controlling voice of the Democracy of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, California, and Oregon, and thus be successful; or, |