majority afford examples of the vaunt that "the South has no traitors." Administration leaders themselves were willing to imperil the government and cripple its operations by withholding needful appropriations rather than resist the demand of the Slave Power to support the border-ruffian policy of Kansas. If the dead lock was to be broken, others must yield, and other interests must give way. Nor was it doubtful, perhaps, from the first, which section would furnish the recreant ones. The House yielded, reversed its action, and thus closed this unprecedented contest by concurring in the Senate amendment by a vote of one hundred and one to ninety-eight. The nearly equal division of parties in the House, and the large preponderance of proslavery strength in the Senate, had prevented any legislation, the action of the House being rejected by the Senate, while the proslavery measures, passed by the latter, failed of receiving the support of the former. The friends of free Kansas had been earnest, vigilant, and brave, but all they could achieve was in the form of reports of committees, the introduction of measures, and earnest debates. The conflict, bitter and sanguinary, still raged in the Territory. There outrage and robbery, arson and murder, held high carnival, and the resistance and courage they provoked revealed and illustrated the earnestness of purpose that animated and impelled the free State settlers. This stern strife, while it afforded signal examples of the audacity of crime and the barbarism of slavery, exhibited also rare illustrations of devotion, endurance, and the martyr spirit of liberty. CHAPTER XXXVIII. PRESIDENTIAL CONVENTIONS AND ELECTION OF 1856. - Convention of American party. - Previous meeting of National Council. - The disturbing question. — Killinger's resolution. Antislavery speeches. - Fillmore nominated. Seceders' convention. - - Banks nominated. - Republican convention at Pittsburg. - Francis P. Blair. Speeches of Greeley, Lovejoy, and Giddings. Address. Speeches. - Letter of Cassius M. Clay. - Nominating convention. - Speeches of Mr. Wilson and Caleb B. Smith. - Platform. - Nomination of Fremont and Dayton. Letters and debate on the North Americans. - Democratic convention. - Buchanan nominated. - Platform. Whig convention. - Indorses American candidates. Nomination of Stockton and Raynor. Buchanan's and Fillmore's letters of acceptance. — Excited canvass. — Conflict of principles.- Circular of Governor Wise to Southern governors. Responses. Meeting at Raleigh. American Antislavery Society. - "Uncle Tom's Cabin."- Results of the election. THE Convention of the American party met in Philadelphia on the 22d of February, 1856. Three days previously, the National Council had met in the same city. It was composed mostly of the same gentlemen who were to constitute the nominating convention. During these three days, slavery was the exciting topic of debate. The antislavery members pressed the adoption of resolutions in harmony with their principles; but the conservatives resisted successfully the introduction into the platform of anything to commit the Order to the principles or purposes of emancipation. On the assembling of the convention, which was called to order by William G. Brownlow of Tennessee, an organization was effected by the choice of Ephraim Marsh of New Jersey for president. The disturbing question immediately revealed its presence. A resolution was introduced by Mr. Killinger of Pennsylvania, protesting against the assumed authority of the National Council "to prescribe a platform of principles for this nominating convention," and asserting that "we will nominate, for President or Vice-President, no man who is not in favor of interdicting the introduction of slavery into territory north of 36° 30′ by congressional action. An angry debate ensued, in which Mr. Coffey of Pennsylvania spoke eloquently for the antislavery members. "We are Americans," he said, " and we will fight for our principles, but we will not stand on a platform which ignores our position upon the vital question of the day"; and he warned Southern members and Northern doughfaces that their course would "result in overwhelming and disgraceful defeat." But the resolution was laid upon the table. On the motion to proceed to vote for candidates an exciting debate arose, but it was carried. Mr. Perkins of Connecticut denounced the course of the majority. "There are," he said, "two great questions before the American people": the one," of reform in the naturalization laws, and that we are agreed in"; the other, "What shall be done about the restoration of freedom to Kansas?" He invited the delegates from Connecticut, and all who agreed with him, to retire from the convention, and about fifty responded to his invitation. Upon a formal ballot for the nomination, Millard Fillmore received one hundred and seventy-nine votes, and he was declared the candidate. Andrew J. Donelson, adopted son of President Jackson, received the nomination for Vice-President. The antislavery delegates then issued an address to "The American Party of the Union"; and a protest was signed by those who supported George Law and Sam Houston. During the closing weeks of 1855, a call, signed by the chairmen of the Republican State committees of Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont; and Wisconsin, was issued for an informal convention at Pittsburg, on the 22d of February, for the purpose of perfecting the national organization and of making provision for a nominating convention to select candidates for President and Vice-President. The convention met in obedience to this invitation, was called to order by Lawrence Brainard of Vermont; and John A. King, son of Rufus King, subsequently governor of New York, was made temporary chairman. The venerable Francis P. Blair was elected president. On taking the chair, he read an elabo rate paper setting forth with precision and power the views entertained by the Republicans of the border States. Speeches were made by Mr. Greeley, Mr. Giddings, and Mr. Lovejoy. Mr. Greeley counselled caution, conciliation, and an earnest effort to secure recruits from both the South and the American party. Mr. Giddings deprecated half-hearted counsels and measures, and urged the convention to adopt an independent policy. Mr. Lovejoy made an uncompromising speech. The committee on organization reported that there should be a national executive committee; that a national convention should be held on the 17th of June for the nomination of candidates for President and Vice-President; and that the Republicans of each State should form a State organization. Mr. Mann of New York, from the committee on an address, presented a paper of great length, which closed with three resolutions. The first demanded, and pledged the party to labor for, the repeal of all laws which allowed the introduction of slavery into territory once consecrated to freedom, and declared its purpose to resist by all constitutional means the existence of slavery in any of the Territories of the United States; the second pledged Republicans to support, by every lawful means, our brethren in Kansas in their constitutional and manly resistance to the usurped authority of their “lawless invaders," and to use their political power in favor of "the immediate admission of Kansas to the Union as a free State"; the third expressed the belief that the continuance of the national administration was "identified with the progress of the Slave Power to national supremacy," and averred it to be a "leading purpose" of the new party "to oppose and overthrow it." During the convention, earnest, eloquent, and hopeful speeches were made by Preston King of New York, John C. Vaughan and Charles Remelin of Ohio, and George W. Julian of Indiana. James W. Stone of Massachusetts, one of the most effective workers and organizers of that State, reminded the convention that the American party had succeeded in that commonwealth because it avowed itself to be the most antislavery party of the State; and he pointed "to the personal liberty law, passed by an American legislature, and the election of Henry Wilson, as evidence of that fact." A letter was also received from Cassius M. Clay. It was an impassioned utterance, and presented from a Southern standpoint, with the authority of personal knowledge, and in language singularly forcible and felicitous, his convictions of what the Slave Power had accomplished, what its ultimate purposes were, and the grounds of fear that it might succeed. Tracing its aggressions and its advance towards nationalizing slavery, he said: "The oligarchy of the three hundred thousand slaveholders no longer conceal their purposes, or deny their assumptions. Not only the blacks, but the whites, of the South have lost their liberties. Nominally free, they have long since ceased to be a third estate in the slave States. They have no social equality, no political force, no moral influence. Steeped in ignorance and poverty, the privileged class neither respect their opinions nor regard their power. The reign of terror has done its dread work; from the press, the pulpit, and the stump there comes no word of remonstrance. The horrors of mob law have crushed out the spirit of the once gallant yeomanry of the South. Despair has seized upon their brave hearts; weeping, bleeding, dying, we sink down into our voiceless woe." The nominating convention of the Republican party was held in Philadelphia on the 17th of June. It was called to order by Edwin D. Morgan of New York; prayer was offered by the Rev. Albert Barnes; and Henry S. Lane was chosen president. In his address, the latter spoke of the anniversary of Bunker Hill as a fitting time "to inaugurate a new era in our history, the regeneration and independence of the North." A follower of Henry Clay, he was yet impelled by the Nebraska swindle to sacrifice party predilections, and his "love for old ties was laid beside the Kentucky patriot in the grave." Mr. Wilson counselled "the same lofty self-sacrifice and patriotism," to "lay a foundation for the union of all parties to save the Republic." He called upon the Whigs to remember the words of Daniel Webster, their great leader; upon the members of the Democratic party to "come and make a true |