North, it had no hesitation in courting and conciliating the ruling element. This disposition was happily accommodated by the controversy which had taken place between Mr. Douglas and the administration of Mr. Buchanan. The anti-slavery sentiment in the North was conciliated by the partisans of the Illinois demagogue, in adopting a new principle for the government of the Territories, which was to allow the people to determine the question of slavery in their territorial capacity, without awaiting their organization as a State, and thus to risk the decision of the rights of the South on the verdict of a few settlers on the public domain. This pander to the antislavery sentiment of the North was concealed under the demagogical name of "popular sovereignty," and was imposed upon the minds of not a few of the Southern people by the artfulness of its appeals to the name of a principle, which had none of the substance of justice or equality. The concealment, however, was but imperfectly availing. The doctrine of Mr. Douglas was early denounced by one of the most vigilant statesmen of the South as 66 a short cut to all the ends of Black Republicanism ;" and later in time, while the "Helper Book" controversy was agitating the country, and other questions developing the union of all the anti-slavery elements for war upon the South, a senator from Georgia was found bold enough to denounce, in his place in Congress, the entire Democratic party of the North as unreliable and "rotten."

The State Rights party of the South had co-operated with the Democracy of the North in the Presidential canvass of 1856, upon the principles of the platform adopted by the National Democratic Convention, assembled in Cincinnati, in June of that year. They expressed a willingness to continue this co-operation in the election of 1860, upon the principles of the Cincinnati platform; but demanded, as a condition precedent to this, that the question of the construction of this platform should be satisfactorily settled. To this end, the State Rights Democratic party in several of the Southern States defined the conditions upon which their delegates should hold seats in the National Convention, appointed to meet at Charleston on the 23d of April, 1860. The Democracy in Alabama moved first. On the 11th of January, 1860, they met in convention at Montgomery, and adopted a series of resolu

tions, from which the following are extracted, as presenting a summary declaration of the rights of the South, a recapitulation of the territorial question, and a definition of those issues on which the contest of 1860 was to be conducted:

Resolved, by the Democracy of the State of Alabama in Convention assem bled, That holding all issues and principles upon which they have heretofore affiliated and acted with the National Democratic party to be inferior in dignity and importance to the great question of slavery, they content themselves with a general reaffirmance of the Cincinnati platform as to such issues, and also indorse said platform as to slavery, together with the following resolutions:

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Resolved, That the Constitution of the United States, is a compact between sovereign and co-equal States, united upon the basis of perfect equality of rights and privileges.

Resolved, further, That the Territories of the United States are common property, in which the States have equal rights, and to which the citizens of any State may rightfully emigrate, with their slaves or other property recognized as such in any of the States of the Union, or by the Constitution of the United States.

Resolved, further, That the Congress of the United States has no power to abolish slavery in the Territories, or to prohibit its introduction into any of them.

Resolved, further, That the Territorial Legislatures, created by the legislation of Congress, have no power to abolish slavery, or to prohibit the introduction of the same, or to impair by unfriendly legislation the security and full enjoyment of the same within the Territories; and such constitutional power certainly does not belong to the people of the Territories in any capacity, before, in the exercise of a lawful authority, they form a Constitution, preparatory to admission as a State into the Union; and their action in the exercise of such lawful authority certainly cannot operate or take effect before their actual admission as a State into the Union.

Resolved, further, That the principles enunciated by Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, deny to the Territorial Legislature the power to destroy or impair, by any legislation whatever, the right of property in slaves, and maintain it to be the duty of the Federal Government, in all of its departments, to protect the rights of the owner of such property in the Territories; and the principles so declared are hereby asserted to be the rights of the South, and the South should maintain them.

Resolved, further, That we hold all of the foregoing propositions to contain "cardinal principles”—true in themselves—and just and proper and necessary for the safety of all that is dear to us; and we do hereby instruct our delegates to the Charleston Convention to present them for the calm consideration and approval of that body-from whose justice and patriotism we anticipate their adoption.

Resolved, further, That our delegates to the Charleston Convention are hereby expressly instructed to insist that said Convention shall adopt a plat

form of principles, recognizing distinctly the rights of the South as asserted in the foregoing resolutions; and if the said National Convention shall refuse to adopt, in substance, the propositions embraced in the preceding resolutions, prior to nominating candidates, our delegates to said Convention are hereby positively instructed to withdraw therefrom.

Under these resolutions the delegates from Alabama received their appointment to the Charleston Convention. The delegates from some of the other Cotton States were appointed under instructions equally binding. Anxious as were the Southern delegates to continue their connection with the Convention, and thus to maintain the nationality of the Democratic party, they agreed to accept, as the substance of the Alabama platform, either of the two following reports which had been submitted to the Charleston Convention by the majority of the Committee on Resolutions-this majority not only representing that of the States of the Union, but the only States at all likely to be carried by the Democratic party in the Presidential election:

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Resolved, That the platform at Cincinnati be reaffirmed with the following resolutions:

Resolved, That the Democracy of the United States hold these cardinal principles on the subject of slavery in the Territories: First, that Congress has no power to abolish slavery in the Territories. Second, that the Territorial Legislature has no power to abolish slavery in any Territory, nor to prohibit the introduction of slaves therein, nor any power to exclude slavery therefrom, nor any power to destroy and impair the right of property in slaves by any legislation whatever.

Resolved, That the platform adopted by the Democratic party at Cincinnati be affirmed, with the following explanatory resolutions:

First. That the government of a Territory, organized by an act of Congress, is provisional and temporary; and, during its existence, all citizens of the United States have an equal right to settle with their property in the Territory, without their rights, either of person or property, being destroyed or impaired by congressional or territorial legislation.

Second. That it is the duty of the Federal Government, in all its departments, to protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and property in the Territories and wherever else its constitutional authority extends.

Third. That when the settlers in a Territory having an adequate population form a State Constitution, the right of sovereignty commences, and,

being consummated by admission into the Union, they stand on an equal footing with the people of other States; and the State thus organized, ought to be admitted into the Federal Union, whether its Constitution prohibits or recognizes the institution of slavery.

The Convention refused to accept either of the foregoing resolutions, and adopted, by a vote of 165 to 138, the following as its platform on the slavery question:

1. Resolved, That we, the Democracy of the Union, in Convention assem bled, hereby declare our affirmance of the resolutions unanimously adopted and declared as a platform of principles by the Democratic Convention at Cincinnati, in the year 1856, believing that Democratic principles are unchangeable in their nature, when applied to the same subject-matters; and we recommend as the only further resolutions the following:

Inasmuch as differences of opinion exist in the Democratic party as to the nature and extent of the powers of a Territorial Legislature, and as to the powers and duties of Congress under the Constitution of the United States, over the institution of slavery within the Territories:

2. Resolved, That the Democratic party will abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States on the questions of constitutional law.

The substitution of these resolutions for those which were satisfactory to the South, occasioned the disruption of the Convention, after a session of more than three weeks, and its adjournment to Baltimore, on the 18th of June. The Cotton States, all, withdrew from the Convention; but the Border Slave States remained in it, with the hope of effecting some ultimate settlement of the difficulty. The breach, however, widened. The reassembling of the Convention at Baltimore resulted in a final and embittered separation of the opposing delegations. The majority exhibited a more uncompromising spirit than ever; and Virginia and all the Border Slave States, with the exception of Missouri, withdrew from the Convention, and united with the representatives of the Cotton States, then assembled in Baltimore, in the nomination of candidates representing the views of the South. Their nominees were John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for President, and Joseph Lane of Oregon for Vice-President.

The old Convention, or what remained of it, nominated Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois for President, and Benjamin Fitzpatrick of Alabama for Vice-President. The latter declin

ing, Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia was substituted on the ticket.

The Southern Democracy and the Southern people of all parties, with but few exceptions, sustained the platform demanded by the Southern delegates in the Convention, and justified the course they had pursued. They recognized in the platform a legimate and fair assertion of Southern rights. In view, however, of the conservative professions and glozed speeches of a portion of the Northern Democracy, a respectable number of Southern Democrats were induced to support their ticket. Mr. Douglas proclaimed his views to be in favor of non-intervention; he avowed his continued and unalterable opposition to Black Republicanism; his principles were professed to be "held subject to the decisions of the Supreme Court" the distinction between judicial questions and political questions being purposely clouded; and his friends, with an ingenious sophistry that had imposed upon the South for thirty years with success, insisted that the support of Stephen A. Douglas was a support of the party in the North which had stood by the South amid persecution and defamation. In consequence of these and other protestations, tickets were got up for Mr. Douglas in most of the Southern States. The great majority, however, of the Democracy of the slave-holding States, except Missouri, supported Breckinridge.

A Convention of what is called the "Constitutional Union" party met in Baltimore on the 9th of May, 1860, and nominated for President and Vice-President, John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts. Their platform consisted of a vague and undefined enumeration of their political principles; as, "The Constitution of the Country, the Union of the States, and Enforcement of the Laws."

The National Convention of the Black Republican party was held at Chicago, in the month of June. It adopted a platform declaring freedom to be the "normal condition" of the Territories; but ingeniously complicating its position on the slavery question by a number of vague but plausible articles, such as the maintenance of the principles of the Constitution, and especial attachment to the Union of the States.

The Presidential ticket nominated by the Convention was Abraham Lincoln of Illinois for President, and Hannibal