552

NOMINATION OF LINCOLN AND HAMLIN.

among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' This they said and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that 'all men are created equal' was of no practical value in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be, as, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to all those who in aftertimes might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant, when such should reappear in this fair land, and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack." 1

The events of the next three years hastened the impending revolution. Public sentiment was hopelessly divided. The old parties were broken up. The slavery issue, with its multifarious bearings and relations, dominated all others. The presidential election of 1860 was approaching.

On the eighteenth of May the Republican party, in National Convention at Chicago, nominated Abraham Lin1 Speech of June 26, 1857. Lincoln's Works, I, 228-232.

THE CHARLESTON CONVENTION.

553

coln for President, and Hannibal Hamlin of Maine for Vice President. The platform proclaimed the principles of the Declaration of Independence and it may be said, by implication, as Lincoln had expounded it. The rights of the States should be maintained inviolate. The new dogma that the Constitution, of its own force, carried slavery into any or all of the territories of the United States was pronounced a dangerous political heresy, at variance with the explicit provisions of that instrument itself, with contemporaneous exposition, and with legislative and judicial precedent; and its tendency was declared revolutionary and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country. "The normal condition of all the territory of the United States," so it continued, "is that of freedom." Our Republican fathers, when they abolished slavery in the national territory, ordained that "no person should be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law." "It becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary," was the conclusion, "to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it, and we deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States."1

The Charleston Convention, which met to name the Democratic candidate, split on the slavery issue. After struggling for three days to make a report, the platform committee agreed in reaffirming the platform on which Buchanan had been nominated and elected in the Cincinnati convention of 1856: That Congress had no power to interfere with the domestic institutions of the States;

1 For an account of the conventions of 1860, see Nicolay and Hay's Lincoln, II, 227-279. See also Halstead's Conventions of 1860.

554

YANCEY, BUTLER AND PUGH.

that the party would adhere to the principles of the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, and to the doctrine of noninterference by Congress with slavery in State or territory, or in the District of Columbia.1 But the committee was unable to make a unanimous report. The majority report, which its supporters declared represented seventeen States and one hundred and twenty-seven electoral votes, resolved that Congress had no power to abolish slavery in the territories; that no territorial legislature had power to prohibit the introduction of slaves nor to exclude slavery, nor to impair the right of property in slaves, and that it was the duty of the federal government to protect the rights of property wherever its authority extended.

The minority report, which its supporters declared represented fifteen free States and one hundred and seventysix electoral votes, resolved that all questions involving rights of property, in States and territories, were judicial in character, and whatever the Supreme Court of the United States decided respecting them, the party would abide by.

William L. Yancey of Alabama, in an adroit, yet powerful speech, whose keynote was disunion, advanced the ultra-opinion of the hour. But the northern delegates, astounded at the boldness of the plan to which the South was now committing itself, found a voice in Senator George E. Pugh of Ohio, who, with equal boldness, declared that the northern delegates and the people they represented would not submit to the domination of slavocracy. When the majority and minority reports had been presented Benjamin F. Butler, a delegate from Massachusetts, proposed, as a middle course, that the Convention simply reaffirm the Cincinnati platform, but this sugges1 See proceedings of the Cincinnati Convention, 1856, pp. 23-27.

THE BALTIMORE CONVENTION.

555

tion, like his ingenious speech, which praised the platform of 1856 for its ambiguity, made little impression. After Yancey's speech and Pugh's reply, William Bigler of Pennsylvania attempted a compromise that should turn the control of the party over to the South, but his efforts ended somewhat unexpectedly in a vote that both platforms be recommitted, and that the committee make another attempt at compromise. This resulted in a second. set of reports, substantially like the first. The majority wished Congress to intervene and protect slavery; the minority would abide by the final decision of the Supreme Court. By a vote of one hundred and sixty-five to one hundred and thirty-eight the Convention, on the thirtieth, adopted the minority report—the platform of the Douglas Democrat. This easily led to the resolution, now again offered, to reaffirm the platform of 1856. Immediately Yancey and his colleagues from Alabama, with the delegation from Mississippi, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and South Carolina, after declaring their inability to support the action of the Convention, formally withdrew, and most of them proceeded at once to complete the program to which they had long been secretly, and, some of them, like Yancey, openly engaged, of forming a Confederacy of the slave-holding States.

After the secession of the seven delegations the Convention, though fifty-seven ballots were taken, failed to nominate a candidate, the rules requiring a two-thirds vote of the full Convention to nominate. This ruled out Douglas, who at no time received more than one hundred and fifty-two and one-half votes. On the third of May the Convention adjourned to meet in Baltimore, on the eighteenth of June. The seceders, who, meanwhile, had organized as a convention in St. Andrew's Hall, after outlining their proposed course in various speeches, also adjourned,

556

DAVIS'S CAUCUS RESOLUTIONS.

having first agreed to reassemble on the eleventh of June, in Richmond.

On the ninth of May, at Baltimore, a new party, calling itself the Constitutional Union party, assembled in convention. It was a composite of old Whigs, of former Know-Nothings, of conservatives, who wished to avoid affiliation with the abolitionists, and of extreme slavocrats. They adopted as their platform, "no other political principle than the Constitution of the country, the Union of the States and the enforcement of the laws," and nominated John Bell of Tennessee, for President and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, for Vice President. Possibly, the country being so much divided, the election might go to the House, in which case, Bell and Everett might be chosen as compromise candidates.

During this time the leaders of slavocracy had been active in Washington. An address prepared by them appeared, urging the Democratic party to support the Charleston seceders. This address, a caucus production and chiefly the work of Jefferson Davis, outlined the immediate program. If the coming Douglas convention at Baltimore failed to adopt a satisfactory platform, and to nominate a satisfactory ticket, the delegation to the Richmond convention and those to the approaching Baltimore convention, who might be dissatisfied with its action, should unite, and as they would form a majority, they should adopt a platform and nominate candidates with the assurance that they represented the majority of the electoral vote. The sharp debate between Douglas and Jefferson Davis in the Senate, early in May, over Davis's caucus resolutions, showed clearly enough that behind the "simple declaration that negro slaves are property" and the "recognition of the obligation of the Fed1 Congressional Globe, March 1, 1860, p. 935.