CHAPTER XII. POPULAR MOVEMENTS OF THE OPPONENTS OF SLAVERY - EXTENSION. - The Utica convention. Van Buren's letter. His nomination. Declaration of principles. — Meeting of antislavery men at Philadelphia. Committee to call a national convention. Ohio convention. National convention called at Buffalo. Mr. Wilson's address to the Whigs of his district. Mr. Allen addresses the citizens of Worcester. Call for a State convention. — Convention at Worcester. Resolutions.- Address to the people.- Delegates to the Buffalo convention. - Position of Mr. Webster. Attitude of the nation. - HAVING peremptorily refused to become members of the Democratic national convention upon the condition tendered to them, the Utica delegates immediately issued an address to the Democracy of New. York, condemning the action of the convention and justifying their own. They summoned a State convention to meet at Utica on the 22d of June, to hear its report, and to recommend candidates for President and VicePresident to the Democratic State convention to be held in September. Colonel Samuel Young, a veteran Democratic statesman, presided. The meeting was earnest and enthusiastic. The speaking was eloquent, racy, and sharp. One of the speakers remarked that were one to import a single slave into any State or Territory he would be hung as a pirate, "yet we are asked to make our flag carry slavery to the shores of the Pacific, to plant it wherever our dominion extends." A letter was read from Mr. Van Buren, defining his position and that of the men who had invited him to become their standard-bearer. Communications were received indorsing the policy of slavery restriction and expressing the hope that Mr. Van Buren would be nominated for the Presidency. On the second day he was nominated for President by acclamation, and Henry Dodge of Wisconsin for Vice-President. General Dodge, however, promptly declined the nomination. Resolutions were adopted, and an address to the Democratic electors of New York was issued. In this address the action of the national convention was sharply criticised, and the doctrine of undying hostility to the further extension of slavery was enunciated. The" Barnburners" were the ablest portion of the New York Democracy. They were thorough party men, but progressive in their tendencies. Martin Van Buren and Silas Wright were the chiefs of this section of the Democratic party. If Mr. Wright had not died in 1847, he would undoubtedly have been the Buffalo nominee in 1848. All the "Barnburners" of 1848, in their desire to avenge the wrongs of Van Buren and Wright, were willing to use the Free Soil weapons. But in one class the Free Soil doctrines were deeply rooted, and in the other they were either merely employed to meet the emergency or were held rather loosely. Prominent in the firstnamed class were Preston King, William Cullen Bryant, David Dudley Field, Abijah Mann, James S. Wadsworth, Ward Hunt, James W. Nye, George Opdyke, and H. H. Van Dyck. All of these were leading men in 1848, all acted with the regular Democracy in 1852, but all of them became very active in the Republican party in 1856. In the other class of "Barnburners" were Benjamin F. Butler, Churchill C. Cambreling, Samuel Young, and Azariah C. Flagg, veteran statesmen, whose names gave prestige to the movement, John A. Dix, John Van Buren, Sanford E. Church, Dean Richmond, Samuel J. Tilden, and John Cochrane. Dix and Cochrane went to the field at the opening of the Rebellion, and became Republicans. Van Buren, Church, Tilden, and Richmond clung to the Democratic party, but were moderately on the side of their country during the war. These and others that might be mentioned were all men of influence and power in the Free Soil movement. But the "bright, particular star" of that revolt was John Van Buren. He was an able lawyer, and unquestionably one of the best popular orators of his time. During the progress of the contest of 1848, he became imbued with antislavery sentiments; but he still adhered to the Democracy, though he never felt quite at home there after 1848. Indeed, such was the brilliant record he then made, his popular talents, his prestige of name and position, that, had he remained true to the principles he then advocated, he would unquestionably have been one of the foremost men of the Republican party, if not its accepted leader, and would thus have linked his name with the imperishable history of its grand achievements. After the nomination of General Taylor had been consummated, the use of the lecture-room of the building in which the convention had been held was obtained by Mr. Wilson for á meeting that evening of delegates and others opposed to the selection made. Fifteen gentlemen were present: Louis 0. Cowan and Samuel Bradley, of Maine; Charles Allen, Henry Wilson, and Daniel W. Alvord, of Massachusetts; Isaac Platt, John C. Hamilton, and Robert Colby, of New York; Horace N. Conger of New Jersey; Lewis D. Campbell, Samuel Galloway, John C. Vaughan, Stanley Matthews, John Burgoyne, and H. B. Hurlburt, of Ohio. Others, in and out of the convention, who had expressed great dissatisfaction at its action and had avowed their indignant purpose not to submit to it, had been invited, and had promised to be present; but they yielded to the strong pressure of the hour, and failed to make their appearance. Mr. Wilson, who had called the meeting, stated its object. Referring to the action of the convention, to the complete triumph of the Slave Power in the nomination of a candidate uncommitted to the organization or to the principles of the Whig party, to the prompt rejection of the Wilmot proviso, and to the denunciation of its friends as "factionists," he avowed his determined purpose to repudiate its action and its candidates. He had called them together, he said, to take measures for holding a national convention for the organization of a new party and for the nomination of candidates pledged to freedom. At his suggestion, John C. Hamilton, son of Alexander Hamilton, was invited to act as chairman of the meeting. On taking the chair, Mr. Hamilton briefly referred to the disastrous influences of slavery even over the carlier administrations of the general government, and to the opinions and actions of his illustrious father and of other statesmen of his day. Robert Colby, son of ex-Governor Anthony Colby of New Hampshire, then a young lawyer of the city of New York, was appointed secretary. It was then moved by Mr. Wilson that a committee of three be appointed to take immediate measures to call, át an early day, a national convention of all persons opposed to the extension of slavery and to the election of the candidates of the Democratic and Whig parties. On this motion remarks were made by several gentlemen. Lewis D. Campbell sharply criticised the action of the convention, denounced the nomination of General Taylor, and declared his purpose not to vote for his election. But he would go home, he said, and consult the people of Ohio before he committed himself to any course of action. The motion for a committee was earnestly and strongly advocated by Mr. Allen. He was for immediate action, for the organization of a new party, and for a vigorous and aggressive policy. He was followed by Mr. Galloway in an earnest and eloquent denunciation of the proceedings of the convention; but, like his colleague, he too wished to return home and consult the people. Mr. Platt, then editor of the Poughkeepsie "Eagle" and a delegate to the convention, spoke in favor of the appointment of the committee, and expressed the hope that large results might follow such small beginnings. Mr. Vaughan, a South-Carolinian by birth, and an antislavery man by conviction, who had been associated with Cassius M. Clay and others in the conduct of antislavery journals, spoke earnestly of the aggressions of the slaveholding interest, of the skilful tactics of the Southern leaders, and of the weakness of Northern delegates, by which the cause of freedom had been betrayed. After further discussion, the committee was. appointed, consisting of Joshua R. Giddings, Charles Allen, and John C. Vaughan. It was then decided that the convention should be held at Buffalo early in August. It was also agreed that Mr. Vaughan should attend the People's mass convention, which had been called by citizens of Ohio, without distinction of party, of those opposed to the extension of slavery, to meet at Columbus on the 22d of June. The purpose of his attendance was to persuade, if possible, the proposed meeting to issue the call for the national convention agreed upon. The Ohio convention was largely attended. Mr. Vaughan was appointed chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, and reported a well-defined and comprehensive platform of principles. One of the resolutions invited all the friends of freedom, free soil, and free territory, opposed to the election of Cass or Taylor, to assemble at Buffalo on the 9th of August to nominate candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency. The speeches and resolutions were based on the principle that the ordinance of 1787, which had given freedom to the Northwest, indicated the only safe policy then to be pursued. A convention of the Liberty party was held at the same time and in the same city. Salmon P. Chase presided. John P. Hale of New Hampshire and Leicester King of Ohio were nominated for President and Vice-President, and the proposed convention at Buffalo received its indorsement. Immediately on his return to Massachusetts from the Philadelphia convention, Mr. Wilson issued an address to the Whigs of the Eighth Congressional District. He had been sent to the convention by the same body which had nominated Horace Mann as the successor of John Quincy Adams, and which had then unanimously resolved that the "voice and vote" of their representative" shall on all occasions be exercised in extending liberty to the human race." He defined the position of General Taylor, traced the proceedings of the convention, and declared that he became convinced that if he consented to his nomination it must be done at the sacrifice of his own opinions and the betrayal of theirs. "What was I," he asked, "your delegate, known to be opposed to slavery in all its forms, to do? Should I, by approving this course, give the lie to my own professions, and to your unanimously recorded votes? I could not be false to my own convictions of duty and to your deliberately recorded opinions to gain the applause or escape the censure of any man or of any body of men. I announced to the convention that I should not be bound by its nominations; and I ventured the assertion, in |