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THE RICHMOND CONVENTION.

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eral Government to protect that property like all others," there was a widespread understanding between Southern leaders in Congress and other leaders in slave-holding States that the recognition of these claims would only carry forward to completion the now swiftly maturing plan for a Southern Confederacy. When the Davis resolutions passed, the platform of the extreme slavocrats was thereby announced.

On the eighteenth of June the Douglas convention assembled at Baltimore, and with it met the Richmond seceders, who put in their claim of right to membership. But each delegation that had seceded met a contesting delegation from its own State, elected in answer to the call of the Douglas men before they had adjourned at Charleston. Again the convention divided and the Davis program was strictly carried out. Seven delegations, more or less affected by the Davis doctrine, withdrew on the twenty-third, Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, the chairman, going with them. The Douglas convention then, on the first ballot, nominated its candidate, with Herschel V. Johnson as Vice President. The Richmond seceders, with equal promptness, organized and nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, and Joseph Lane of Oregon, on a platform affirming the equal right of all citizens to settle with their property in a territory without any impairment of rights by Congress or territorial Legislature, and the obligation of the federal government to protect all rights of the citizens, to permit them, when the numbers warranted, to form a State constitution, at which point in their history the right of sovereignty began. The State then ought to be admitted, whatever its constitution might provide as to slavery.' The Douglas platform, after declaring that the Democratic party was not in ac1 This was, in substance, the Davis caucus resolution.

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cord "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 over the institution of slavery within the territories," affirmed that the party would "abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court" on the issues involved. Thus the doctrine of popular sovereignty was for a time to be in suspense till either public opinion acquiesced in its interpretation by Douglas or the Supreme Court should hand down a final decision regarding it.

Political platforms are not always safe foundations for conclusions regarding parties, but, allowing for the brevity, ambiguity or obscurity of the platforms of 1860, it is evident that the country was hopelessly divided on the question of the power of Congress over slavery in the territories. The Dred Scott decision made slavery the law, freedom the exception. The three factions of the Democratic party agreed in accepting this decision as final. But the Republicans, following the suggestion of Lincoln, when first he reviewed the decision, believed it was erroneous and should be reversed. So they cited as part of their political faith the fifth Amendment to the Constitution, that "no person should be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law." Therefore, legislation should be initiated that would prevent the extension of slavery into the territories. This indicated the fixed purpose of the party to bring about a reversal of the decision. Nor was this merely a campaign threat. It meant that in the event of the election of Lincoln the Supreme Court might be reorganized either by enlarging its membership or, as several of its members were aged men, by the appointment of successors in political sympathy with Republican doctrines. The election, on the sixth of November, was a political revolution. Lincoln and Ham

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lin received a majority of the electoral votes and a plurality of the popular vote.1 Nor was this all. The Congress that would assemble after the fourth of March, 1861, would have a Republican majority in both branches.2 Meanwhile South Carolina and other Southern States had been carrying out a program of secession.

1 Lincoln and Hamlin, electoral vote, 180; popular vote, 1,865,913; Breckinridge and Lane, electoral vote, 72; popular vote, 848,404; Bell and Everett, electoral vote, 39; popular vote, 591,900; Douglas and Johnson, electoral vote, 12; popular vote, 1,374,664.

2 Thirty-seventh Congress, 1st Session, assembled July 4, 1861. Senate Democrats, 11; Republicans, 31; Americans, 7.* House of Representatives-Democrats, 42; Republicans, 106; Americans, 28.†

*One vacancy.
†Two vacancies.

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CHAPTER V.

SECESSION.

On the seventeenth of December, 1860, a Convention assembled in Columbia, South Carolina, ostensibly to choose presidential electors, but really for the purpose of passing an ordinance of secession. This State was the only one, in 1860, whose presidential electors were chosen by the legislature. A week after the election of Lincoln the legislature passed the act calling the Convention. On the twentieth of December the ordinance of secession was passed unanimously.1 A Committee of Seven was appointed to draw up a "declaration of causes inducing and justifying the secession of the State," which was discussed and passed four days later. At the same time an "Address of the People of South Carolina and to the People of the

1 AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the Union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America."

We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained,

That the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all Acts, and parts of Acts, of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of "The United States of America," is hereby dissolved.

Journal of the Convention, p. 44.

The Ordinance was prepared by a Committee of Seven (Journal, p. 23) consisting of John A. Inglis, R. B. Rhett, James Chestnut, Jr., James L. Orr, Maxey Gregg, B. F. Dunkin, and W. F. Hutson. Rhett had served in the State Legislature, 1826; as Attorney

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