ment." As Richardson did not make this letter public, Douglas, at half-past nine in the morning of the day that the disruption occurred, sent a despatch similar in purport to Dean Richmond, the leader of the New York delegation, but this was also suppressed. Richardson afterwards explained that the action of the Southerners had put it out of his power to use Douglas's letter.

After the dissatisfied had withdrawn, David Tod, of Ohio, by request of his associate vice-presidents, took the chair. The convention proceeded to ballot, and, after the second trial, when Douglas had received all the votes but thirteen, he was by resolution declared nominated on the ground that he had received the votes of two-thirds of the delegates present. Senator Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, was nominated for Vice-President. When he afterwards declined the nomination, the national committee named Herschel V. Johnson, of Georgia, for the position.

The Baltimore seceders, joined by most of the seceders from the Charleston convention, met in another hall, adopted the Southern platform, and nominated Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for President, and Lane, of Oregon, for VicePresident.'

Although Congress adjourned in June, the House had done a large amount of work since its organization. It passed a bill for the admission of Kansas under the Wyandotte free constitution, which had been ratified by a large majority of the popular vote. The Senate, however, refused to take up the bill. The House repealed the slave code of New Mexico,' but to this the Senate did not agree. The

1 Life of Douglas, Flint, p. 212.

See National Political Conventions of 1860, Halstead; New York Tribune; Pike's First Blows of the Civil War. The Charleston seceders had adjourned to Richmond, but, on meeting there, adjourned to await the action of the Baltimore convention; and when they afterwards reassembled, they endorsed the nominations of Breckinridge and Lane.

House Journal, 1st Sess. 36th Cong., Part I. pp. 220, 303; Part II. p. 815. The vote was: Yeas, 97; nays, 90.

House also passed a homestead bill. This the Senate amended, making it a less liberal measure for the landless. The House, on the principle that half a loaf is better than none, accepted the Senate's modifications; but the bill was vetoed by the President, and the necessary two-thirds vote to pass it over the veto could not be commanded in the Senate. The Morrill tariff bill, providing for a revision, and in some cases an increase, of tariff duties, went through the House, but was not acted upon by the Senate. A House committee, whose chairman was Covode, investigated the action of the administration in its attempts to carry first the Lecompton bill and then the English bill through the House of Representatives in 1858, bringing to light facts that redounded little to the credit of Buchanan and his cabinet. At the North, the administration had sunk so low in public estimation, and the interest in the conventions and preparations for the presidential campaign had so engrossed public notice, that the report of the Covode committee, and the criticism by the President of its manner of procedure, did not attract the attention that their importance perhaps warranted.'

After the debate between Douglas and Davis, the most important event in the Senate was an oration by Sumner on the "Barbarism of Slavery." Sumner had returned from Europe just before the opening of the session. His former health and strength were restored sufficiently for him to give again systematic attention to the duties of a senator, and this was his first speech in the Senate since the one delivered four years previously, that had provoked the outrageous assault. He delivered a courageous invective against slavery, employing a line of argument now hardly necessary for Northern people, but then especially irritating to the South. He took up the question where he had left off at the close

1 See p. 300.

For an account of this friendly to the President, see Life of Buchanan, Curtis, vol. ii. chap. xii.

of his speech, "The Crime against Kansas;" but he ap parently failed to comprehend the progress of anti-slavery sentiment, and the direction it had taken during his three and a half years of enforced absence. "We have just had a four hours' speech from Sumner on the 'Barbarism of Slavery," wrote Senator Grimes, an earnest Republican; "in a literary point of view it was of course excellent. As a bitter, denunciatory oration, it could hardly be exceeded in point of style and finish. But to me many parts sounded harsh, vindictive, and slightly brutal. slavery tends to barbarism; but Mr. remedy for the evils he complains of. the Republicans no good. Its effect has been to exasperate the Southern members, and render it impossible for Mr. Sumner to exercise any influence here for the good of his State."

It is all true that Sumner furnishes no His speech has done

The campaign of 1860 was not so animated as that of 1856, yet the problem concerning the division of the electoral votes was substantially the same. Frémont had had 114 electors; of these, and of the 4 of Minnesota, Lincoln was reasonably certain, but he needed 34 more, which must be had from some combination of the votes of the following States: Pennsylvania, which cast 27; New Jersey, 7; Indiana, 13; Illinois, 11; Oregon, 3; California, 4. While not arithmetically necessary to carry Pennsylvania, it was, as in 1856, practically so; for if the Republicans could not obtain the vote of Pennsylvania, they certainly could not hope for that of New Jersey, and one or the other was absolutely required. Had Douglas been the candidate of the united Democracy on the Cincinnati platform, the contest would have been close and exciting and the result doubtful. Douglas himself boasted that had that been the case he would have beaten Lincoln in every State of the Union except

1 Grimes to his wife, June 4th, Life of Grimes, Salter, p. 127; see also editorial in New York Tribune, June 5th.

Vermont and Massachusetts.' Had the Democrats been united on Breckinridge and the Southern platform, the only conceivably different result would have been larger Lincoln majorities in the Northern States. But with the actual state of affairs, after the two nominations at Baltimore, the success of the Republicans seemed to be assured. The split in the Democratic party doomed it to certain defeat before the people; but as the contest went on, a glimmer of hope arose that while it was absolutely impossible for Douglas, Breckinridge, or Bell to obtain a majority of the electoral votes, it was within the bounds of possibility to defeat Lincoln and throw the election into the House of Representatives. Then Breckinridge might be elected, or, the House failing to make a choice, Lane would become President by virtue of having been chosen Vice-President by the Senate.'

This contingency created some alarm among the Republicans, whose elation had been great at the failure of the Democrats to cement at Baltimore their divided party. Pennsylvania and Indiana still held their State elections in October, and it was generally conceded that if they went Republican, nothing could prevent the election of Lincoln. Pennsylvania was the more important, and at first the more doubtful, of the two; so that, as in 1856, the contest again hinged on the State election in the Keystone State. Now, however, a new issue had been brought into the canvass. A sequence of the panic of 1857 was great depression in the iron trade. As the Democrats in Congress had voted almost unanimously against the Morrill tariff bill, which, from the Pennsylvania point of view, was expected to cure the

1 Speech at Baltimore, Sept. 6th, Baltimore Daily Exchange.

In the event of the election going to the House, the voting would have been by States, and it was conjectured that Lincoln would have 15; Breckinridge, 12; Bell, 2; and 4 were divided or doubtful.-New York Tribune, July 16th. Another estimate was: Lincoln, 15; Breckinridge, 11; Douglas, 2; Bell, 1; doubtful, 4-New York Tribune, Oct. 4th.

present trouble, Democrats in that State were lukewarm. Republicans, on the other hand, were aggressive and went to work in earnest to secure the doubtful vote, by showing the greater devotion of their party to the material interests of the State. The Chicago convention, as we have seen, recognized this sentiment by adopting a tariff plank, which, although it was called ambiguous in expression, had been satisfactory to the Pennsylvania delegation.' But there was no doubt about the Democratic position. Both the Douglas and the Breckinridge conventions had reaffirmed the Cincinnati platform of 1856, which declared in favor of "progressive free trade throughout the world." Andrew G. Curtin, the People's candidate for governor, a man of ability and energy, and a thorough-going protectionist, gave the key-note to the Pennsylvania campaign by pushing into prominence the tariff question. Protection to home industry, and freedom in the territories, were the watchwords; but the promise of higher duties on iron appealed more powerfully to the doubtful voters than did the plea for free soil. Many speeches were made in which the sole issue discussed was the tariff, and it is safe to say that no Pennsylvania advocate of Lincoln and Curtin made a speech in his State without some mention of the question that now dominated all others in the Pennsylvania mind. The effect of this mode of conducting the canvass was so marked that by September it became apparent that, although the Democratic candidate for governor was supported by the adherents of Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell, the chance of election lay decidedly on the side of Curtin. The fusion in 1856 had been against the Democrats; now the Lincoln

...

"The Evening Post says the tariff plank in the Chicago platform means free trade; the Tribune says it means protection. . . . The tariff resolution was intended to conciliate support in Pennsylvania and New Jersey without offending free-trade Republicans in other States."—New York World, Oct 19th, then an independent journal inclining to Bell.

In 1860 Pennsylvania produced one-half of the iron made in the whole country.