LECOMPTON CONVENTION.

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member of the House of Representatives ten years; then CHAP Minister to Russia-sent by General Jackson-then a member of the Senate of the United States; then Secre- 1857. tary of State, under President Polk, and then Minister to Great Britain. Senator Lewis Cass was appointed Secretary of State, by the new President.

It

Under the auspices of the Territorial Legislature of Kansas an election was ordered for delegates to a convention for the purpose of framing a constitution, but under conditions to secure a pro-slavery majority of delegates. The Free State men, for the reasons already given, as well as others, refused to take part in the election. was held, however, and a pro-slavery delegation chosen. June. Meanwhile the other party published an address to the people of the United States, in which they set forth the wrongs they had endured, and to which they were still subject.

Soon after Governor Geary resigned, and the President appointed Robt. J. Walker, of Mississippi. The new Governor endeavored to remedy these evils, and promised the people of the territory a free expression of their wishes at the polls.

Owing to the influence of Governor Walker the Free State men consented to vote at the coming election for a delegate to Congress, and members for a Territorial Legislature. They, by a vote more than two to one, chose their candidates.

Shortly after this election, the delegates chosen as we have seen, met in convention at Lecompton, and speedily framed a constitution. It contained a provision adopting slavery, and this provision alone, the convention submitted to the people of Kansas to ratify or reject. Connected with this was a clause which made it necessary for those who were challenged at the polls "to take an oath to support the constitution if adopted," before they were

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CHAP. permitted to deposit their vote. This was followed by a proviso that the constitution could not be amended before 1857. the year 1864, and then only by the concurrence of two thirds of the members of both Houses of the Legislature, and "a majority of all the citizens of the State."

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The Free State men refused to vote on the ratification of this constitution, as they denied the authority that framed it; but it received some votes, and was declared adopted, and sent as such to Congress. There the discussion on the subject was as bitter as ever. It was denied that the people of Kansas were fairly treated in not having the opportunity to vote upon the adoption of the entire constitution as implied by the doctrine of " Popular Sovereignty," said to be the essence of the Kansas-Nebraska bill.

Finally, a bill was passed to submit the constitution to the people of Kansas, but on two conditions; one, that if they failed to ratify it, they would not be permitted to enter the Union until they had a population of ninetythree thousand; the other, if they did ratify it, they should receive certain of the public lands for State purposes. In the face of these strange conditions the people of 1858. Kansas, on the 2d of August, rejected the constitution by an overwhelming majority."

1860.

Minnesota was admitted into the Union, and allowed to have two representatives until the next apportionment of members among the several States.

A change was made in the laws in relation to the issue of patents, by which "all patents hereafter granted shall remain in force seventeen years from date of issue, and all extensions of such patents are hereby prohibited."

The Eighth Census of the United States sums up as follows: Entire population, 31,443,790; of whom 3,953,529 are slaves.

PARTY PLATFORMS.

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The question of the extension of slavery into the Ter- CHAP ritories, was by no means decided in the presidential contest of 1856. During the subsequent four years the 1860. discussion of the subject still continued in Congress and among the people. In proportion as they read and judged for themselves, did party spirit lose its despotic influences, and the change in public sentiment, especially in the non-slaveholding States, was unprecedented. Many thousands of intelligent voters, who once acquiesced in the policy of the extension of the system, would no longer lend their sanction to measures the tendency of which they now better understood.

In view of subsequent events, a more than usual interest will ever belong to the exposition of principles as set forth in what are termed "platforms" of the parties in nominating their respective candidates for the office of President in 1860.

The Democratic party, at a convention held in Charleston, South Carolina, became divided into two hostile sections the Breckinridge and Douglas-thus designated from their prominent leaders. One section-the Breckinridge-reaffirmed, with explanatory resolutions, the principles adopted by the entire party four years before at its convention held in Cincinnati. They proclaimed the 1856. "non-interference of Congress with slavery in the Territories or in the District of Columbia," and "The admission of new States with or without domestic slavery, as they may elect." The other section-Douglas-also adopted the Cincinnati platform, and likewise affirmed "That 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," "That the party will abide by the decisions of the Supreme

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1860.

1849.

CHAP Court of the United States on the questions of Constitutional law." These resolutions are significant. That court had recently given an opinion known as the Dred Scott Decision, which was now assumed to sanction the doctrine, first announced by John C. Calhoun, that the Constitution recognized slavery, and sanctioned and protected it in the Territories.' On the contrary, the Republican party denied that this special decision of the court had a legitimate bearing on the subject, it being a side issue, and therefore null and void; and now, since other means had failed in Kansas, used only to introduce covertly the system of human bondage into the Territories. The latter party, at their convention held in Chicago, announced that "the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution, is essential to the preservation of our Republican Institutions." "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights;" and "That the Federal Constitution, the rights of the States and the union of the States, must and shall be preserved;" also the rights of the States should be maintained inviolate, "especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively." "That the normal condition of all the Territory of the United States is that of FREEDOM," and they denied "the authority of Congress, of a Territorial Legislature, or of individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States."

Still another party, heretofore mainly known as American, now adopted the designation of "Constitutional Union," and proclaimed as their platform, “The Constitution of the country, the union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws."

1 See Hist., pp. 774, 775.

MR. LINCOLN ELECTED PRESIDENT.

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Such were the issues. One section of the Democratic CHAP. party nominated as candidate for the office of President, John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky; the other, Senator 1860. Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois; the Republicans, Abraham Lincoln, also of Illinois; and the Union party, John Bell, of Tennessee. After a spirited contest, Mr. Lincoln was elected President, and on the same ticket Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, Vice-President.

Mr. Lincoln's election was hailed with satisfaction by certain parties in the Southern States, especially in South Carolina; in the latter, because it furnished the occasion to carry into effect a plan long in contemplation. Threats of disunion had often been made, and now that State dared, by a formal Ordinance of Secession, to declare "that the State of South Carolina had resumed her position among the nations of the world as a free, sovereign, and independent State."

Under the control of leaders, a series of public meetings, inflammatory in their character, were soon after held in the "Cotton States." These assemblies congratulated South Carolina on her action, and passed resolutions strongly in favor of disunion. Meantime companies of Minute Men" were formed, and some of the Legislatures appropriated money to arm the militia. Thus these highhanded measures continued. One month before Mr. Lincoln entered upon his office, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, proclaimed that they had thrown off their allegiance to the Union, and their determination to form a Southern Confederacy.

At this time the whole number of National troops in these States was only about eight hundred, while the marines in the navy-yards at Norfolk and Pensacola numbered not more than one hundred and twenty. These troops were under the command of officers, many of whom

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