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Page 9, first line, second paragraph, for "Magnolia Hall" read "Hibernia Hall."

Page 31, last line, read "equivocal" for "equivalent."

Page 101, last line of page, read "leonine" instead of "canine.”

THE CHARLESTON CONVENTION.

THE Hon. Stephen A. Douglas was the pivot individual of the Charleston Convention. Every delegate was for or against him. Every motion meant to nominate or not to nominate him. Every parliamentary war was pro or con Douglas.

On the route to Charleston, delegates and others who were proceeding to attend the Convention, talked about Mr. Douglas. The questions in every car and at every station, were: Would he be? could he be? should he be nominated? Could he get a majority of the Convention? could he get two-thirds? Would the South support him if he should be nominated? Would the Administration acquiesce if he were

nominated?

NOTES BY THE WAY.

[The following extract from a letter written at Atlanta, Ga., April 17th, will give an idea of the spirit of Southerners when en route for the Convention :]

ATLANTA, GA., April 17th.

He

We had interesting political talk on the cars this evening. Two Georgians were disputing as to the strength of Douglas in the State. One, a Charleston delegate, said he would not do. He might possibly vote for him if nominated, but it would be with great reluctance. did not know but one man in favor of Douglas in his district. The other had been defeated as a candidate for Charleston delegate. He said Douglas men were thick as blackberries all through the region from which he came. Douglas would carry the State by twenty thousand majority. "Let him be nominated, and there will be such a warwhoop as never was heard in the land." The same man said the oldline Democrats of Georgia were for Douglas, and the old-line Whigs and the Americans, turned Democrats, were against him. This man was asked if he believed in Douglas's doctrine of popular sovereignty, which was no better than Abolitionism, and he said he "went the whole of it; " and he was backed up by a Douglas man from Kentucky. The Georgians and Kentuckians generally, on the train, considered that it would not do at all to run Douglas. Some man must be run who would unite the party-somebody not obnoxious to any section of it-somebody who had not been so recently as Douglas fighting side by side with the Black Republicans against the one and indivisible Democracy.

[The following from a letter written at Social Circle, Georgia, on the 18th April, is still farther illustrative :]

66

SOCIAL CIRCLE, GA., April 18th.

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We have had warm times among the delegates to the Convention since our stop here. A conversation commenced at the dinner table about Douglas. There was a delegate from Indiana and an outsider from Kentucky, sitting very near a couple of Mississippians, delegates, friends of Jeff. Davis, and "fire-eaters, as we term them. Some private whisky was passed, and the Mississippians drank to "the health of the nominee." The question was asked whether that included Douglas. Mississippi said he did not consider him in the ring at all. He [Douglas] had no chance of being the nominee, and therefore, when he drank to the health of the nominee it did not include him. The Douglas man thought Douglas should be included, and proceeded to say that if he was nominated he must have the support of the entire Democratic party. A man could not go into a Convention and then bolt the nominee if not pleased with him—not at all, certainly not with honor. Now, the Mississippians do intend to bolt Douglas if he is nominated, and hence they were touched, and took fire. The controversy ran high. The Indianian was asked what he meant by Southern fanatics and fire-caters "—an expression he had used-and he said, "such men as Jeff. Davis." This was touching the Mississippians on a tender point. They demanded very explicitly to know in what respect Davis was fanatical-and the specifications were rather vague. Mississippi wanted to know whether Davis had ever demanded any thing but the rights of the South, and if so, what?— and said that certain allegations made against the conservatism of Davis were mere falsehoods. Indiana claimed the same right to criticise Davis that Mississippi had to criticise Douglas. Mississippi denied that. "Davis was a patriot, and Douglas was a traitor, d-d little better than Seward-that was the difference." Indiana talked about fighting the battles of the South in the North, and all that sort of thing. Mississippi did not thank the Northern Democracy for doing any such thing. The South was able to fight her own battles, and to protect her rights. She could do this out of the Union, if not in it. Indiana talked about returning fugitive slaves, and Mississippi laughed scornfully. And as the parties had to either bet or fight, a bet of one thousand dollars was made on the spot. The Mississippian bet that Douglas would not receive the electoral vote of that State if he were nominated. The Douglasite bet that he would. If Douglas is not nominated at Charleston, the stakes are, of course, to be withdrawn.* The feeling excited by this controversy, was warm and general. The delegates who did not mix in, shook their heads and talked of stormy times ahead, and the peril in which the party would be placed. It was manifest that if the Mississippian and the Indianian were joint representative men of their sections, there was little chance for the nomination of a candidate who could, by any possibility, be elected, or of the con

*This bet was withdrawn at the solicitation of mutual friends from Kentucky.

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struction of a platform that would be even superficially satisfactory. The Mississippians understood themselves to be of the class that dictates doctrine to the Democratic party, and talked as if the party was their property, peculiar," at that, and rather a worn out old nigger, welcome to die. Indiana talked of love for the party, and devotion to it, and a determination to support the nominee, whoever he might be. Mississippi talked of principle, and "damn the party," if it was not placed squarely upon principle. In other words, if the party was not to serve the South, its inission was accomplished. My Indiana friend, was, I think, astonished to find a real live specimen of fire-eater-and was rather embarrassed by his discovery.

I have dwelt on this scene thus fully, because it is a preliminary symptom of the Charleston Convention, and is, indeed, the history of the Convention in miniature and wanting the climax. While the war

went on, the Kentucky delegation, quiet, substantial gentlemen, who don't want office, and would not have it, stood back, and talked in business-like style of the great merits as a man and availability as a candidate, of their friend, the Hon. James Guthrie. The Mississippians have the Freeport speech of Douglas with them, and intend to bombard him in the Convention with ammunition drawn from it. The extract upon which they depend most, is that in which he said " no matter what may be the decision of the Supreme Court," the people of a Territory could abolish slavery while in a territorial condition. They will use this remorselessly. However great may be the weight of the Douglas men in the Convention, he will be assailed most bitterly. The fight against him involves, for a very large class of Southern politiciansindeed, the most influential class of the time-the issues of life, and those Southern men have a great advantage over the Douglas men in the fact that they are sincere. They have principles. They stand upon convictions, and will fight until from their bones the flesh be hacked. The Douglas men are not so stiff in their backs nor so strong in the faith. In a conversation with an Alabama delegate to-day, I told him I presumed the South would have to put up with another platform capable of a double construction; he declared that impossible. I inquired -"Don't you see the Douglas delegates don't agree with you, and can't and won't agree with you? Do you not know that if they went home to make a fight on the platform you insist they shall place themselves upon, they would be beaten in every Northern State and every Northern township, and that the majority against them in all the Northern States would only be counted by tens of thousands?"

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No, he did not know any such thing. Mayor Wood was a man," and had carried the city of New York. He was as sound as any Southern man. Connecticut would have been carried by the Democracy if there had not been so much pandering to Douglasism. The way to fight a battle was to fight it on principle. If the North was not willing to stand squarely up for the Constitution with the South, it was high time the fact were known. This campaign was the test campaign. It must be fought on principle. There must be no Douglas dodgesno double constructions-no janus-faced lying resolutions-no doubletongued and doubly damned trifling with the people. The people were

entitled to a fair fight, and must have it. What was the Democratic party for if it was not for the vindication of the great constitutional principles upon which our governmental fabric rests? I stated I had for some time strongly suspected that the Democratic party was an organization for the purpose of obtaining federal offices-in other words, a political corporation-like a great lottery company-for the distribution of the spoils. I thought that I could safely speak for the party in the North, in that respect. He repudiated, with indignation-obviously sincere, too-all idea of the spoils. He was for Southern principle; and if the Democratic party was not for them it was against them-and if it was a spoils party, the sooner it was destroyed and sent to the devil, the better. As for the popular sovereignty doctrine, it was as bad as Sewardism; it was the real practical Black Republicanism doctrine; it was the veritable "short cut"- -as Gov. Wise said in his Donnelly letter" to all the ends of Black Republicanism." "If the Republican party leaders had half sense (he said), they would adopt the Squatter Sovereignty platform at Chicago. It was the Chicago, not the Charleston card."

I thought so too, but the difficulty was, the Republican leaders hadn't half sense, and couldn't see their game. His confidence in their political sagacity was far greater than mine.

The chances of Mr. Douglas for the Charleston nomination, were next in order. I spoke of the great pressure that would be brought to bear from the North, for Douglas. He said the nomination of Douglas was not a possibility. He put the case in this way: The North has had two Presidents. The South is willing, so far as she is concerned, that she shall have another one. But the South will not allow the Northern man, who, of all men claiming to belong to the Democratic party, is most obnoxious, to be the candidate. The South has to perform the principal part in the election of the President; and her feelings must be respected. The nomination of Douglas would be an insult to her, which she must resent by defeating him at all hazards. And here our coversation subsided into observations concerning cypress swamps, the inky Edisto river-a ditch fifty yards wide, filled with black water the lofty cypress trees-the yellow pines-the live oaks-the Spanish moss making the wilderness venerable-the white sand-the red clay, etc., etc.

PLACES, PERSONS AND POLITICS IN CHARLESTON BEFORE THE CONVENTION.

There was in Charleston, as usual in such cases, much that was important in the business preliminary to the Convention, and there are many places in the city intensified with the Convention in interest. Among those places, perhaps the most interesting are Institute Hall, where the Convention was held, and Hibernia Hall, which was the Douglas head-quarters.

CHARLESTON, April 20th.

The Institute Hall where the Convention is to be held, will contain about three thousand people. The floor is perfectly level, and the seats

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