not undertake to say who is to blame for this, but I speak of the fact. The consequence was, in the next election the Democratic party in the North suffered severely. Take the State of Pennsylvania for example. Instead of seventeen members of Congress that our party there elected in 1856, we only got two or three in 1858. Our friends have been recovering their ground again, and are ready to go into the fight with high hopes. Now I ask if it is wise policy for us in the South to seek to get the platform changed just before another election-a total radical change, from non-intervention to intervention? I am free to say that I have very great apprehensions that such a thing would lead to a defeat, and hence, I would not make the change even if there were not other valid objections to it.

We all know, Mr. President, who were here in this city four or five days ago, that when the reports came that the secession had occurred at Charleston, and it was supposed that the Democratic party was broken up and destroyed, that every one who met our Republican opponents was struck with their jubilant expression. If they had actually carried the election, and got into power, they could not have shown more elation. They thought that the Democratic party, which they had in vain endeavored to destroy, had killed itself by committing political suicide. But when, on Thursday morning last, we learned that the convention had adjourned over to meet in Baltimore, their faces were very much elongated. I have no doubt they would like that we should get into such collisions and divisions as would enable them to triumph over us; but I do not think they are destined to have this gratification. The Democratic party has great vitality, because it stands on the great principles of the Constitution; it has good and true men in every section of the country, and I entertain the highest hopes that they will yet come together and make a harmonious nomination.

It is to be regretted exceedingly, however, that we should have these debates on immaterial questions. Senators upon this floor are representative men; and hence when we embark in discussions, and squabble over these points which are small in themselves, we tend to divide our people at home; and I forebore to embark in this discussion, for this reason. The question was connected, also, somewhat with the aspirations and claims of different presidential candidates, and I felt a delicacy in embarking in it; and I do so now only with extreme reluctance. As a citizen, I have a right to my opinions. As a Senator, I regard myself as a member of a co-ordinate branch which is the equal of the President; and, as a Senator, I have no desire to interfere with the presidential contest. There are reasons which will strike every mind why I ought not to do so, and why I think no Senator should. We have a rule of the Senate which requires us in debate to avoid personality and personal allusions; and yet, sir, some half a dozen perhaps of the Senators here are prominent candidates for the presidency; and if I should interfere to aid one of them, I necessarily get up discussions as to the personal merits of these gentlemen. I cannot indeed do so without doing violence to my own feelings. I see

at my side the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglas) whom I know to be a very thorough Democrat, who has fought the Abolitionists for the last twelve or fifteen years with as much zeal and effect as any man in America; and who has been burnt in effigy perhaps oftener than any one else, and who is more thoroughly feared and hated by them than any man above ground. Immediately at his side sits the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Hunter) with whom I vote as frequently as with any man on this floor-a Senator whose statesmanlike qualities have made him favorably known to the whole country, and whom everybody admits to be worthy of the presidency. Looking further along, I find the Senator from Mississippi, (Mr. Davis) whose resolutions I have been discussing, in whose company I was defeated in 1850, when the compromise bills were passed in opposition to our views, whose services to his country in the field and in the civil councils are such as to render him eminently worthy to be presented by his State. If I look further on, I see the Senator from Tennessee, (Mr. Johnson) a native of my own State, a gentleman whose talents and energy have enabled him to overcome the greatest obstacles, and placed him in the front rank of the statesmen of the country. If I look around, I find the Senator from Oregon, (Mr. Lane) likewise a native of my own State, whose long services to his country on the field of battle and in our civil councils render him, too, eminently worthy of this position. Sir, so far from endeavoring to throw an obstacle in the way of any of these gentlemen, I would be proud to aid him. There is nothing that either of them could desire that it would not give me sincere gratification to assist them in. There is no personal or political object of theirs that I would not like to aid them in effecting; and if any one of them should receive the nomination, I want no other privilege than that of sustaining him. I am ready to march in the ranks and with those who go on foot, and wherever the struggle is hardest and the toil and danger the greatest.

Entertaining these views, I have been disposed to abstain as much as possible from the discussion of these questions, and I really hope that we shall not press them. I think no advantage can grow out of it. I greatly fear that I have occupied more of the valuable time of the Senate than I intended. I felt, however, that from me, in my position, some explanation was necessary. I think that the gentlemen on the other side of the chamber have given us a platform already. We shall have to fight them; we had better make up our minds to go into the contest, and meet them on the great issue they tender us. In ten days we shall probably have their declaration of war from Chicago, and the clash of arms will commence very soon. It is time for us to close our ranks. I am ready to fight under that flag and that standardbearer that may be given us. I can adopt any of those platforms that were presented at Charleston. I leave all that to our political friends assembled in convention. I know that they will present a platform, and present a man less objectionable to me than the candidate on the other side. I regard them as the deadly political enemies of my section, as the enemies of the Constitution of the United States. Let us embark in the contest and fight them with closed and serried ranks

on our side. I have spoken only in behalf of the Democratic party, of the Constitution, and the country.

NOTE.

The debate was continued for many days. I offered several amendments to the series of resolutions of Mr. Davis, in the hope that they might be so changed as to allow the Democracy, both North and South, to come together on a common platform, and make a united effort to save the country from the danger that was impending.

In the course of the long struggle one of my amendments was adopted. Its language was as follows:

Resolved, That the existing condition of the Territories of the United States does not require the intervention of Congress, for the protection of property in slaves."

The vote on this resolution, as an amendment, was yeas 26, noes 23. Its adoption was extremely distasteful to Mr. Davis and his friends, and before the subject was finally disposed of, Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, who, as a member of Mr. Davis' Committee on Military Affairs, was on good terms with him, was induced to move a reconsideration of the vote, by which my amendment had been adopted. Mr. Wilson was doubtless quite willing to assist in cutting the throat of the Democratic party.

On the vote to reconsider, Mr. Wilson's Republican friends refused to vote at all, and even Mr. Bigler, of Pennsylvania, did likewise, and the vote was reconsidered, and the amendment rejected. The resolutions were finally passed in such form as to complete the division and destruction of the Democratic party as a national organization. After the end of the proceedings, in the evening, I well remember that my colleague, Governor Bragg, who concurred in my views and voted as I did, both in caucus and in the Senate, though he declined to take part in the debates, as I then supposed, because averse to doing what was disagreeable to Davis and Buchanan, I well remember his saying, "Well, Clingman, you have been completely whipped out to-day." I replied, that but for the condition into which the country was to be precipitated, I was not unwilling to have made the last fight for the integrity of the Democratic party.

The action at Baltimore consummated the destruction of the Democratic party as a national organization, Mr. Breckinridge being made the candidate of the seceders, against Mr. Douglas, who had the endorsement of a majority of the convention. The election of Mr. Lincoln was thus rendered a certainty. In view of the fact that in the previous contest, Fremont had been beaten with difficulty, and the subsequent increase of strength of the Republican party as shown in all the succeeding Northern State elections, it seems impossible to believe that any well informed man could fail to see that Lincoln's election was a certainty.

This question forces itself on the mind, Why did any one aid in producing this result unless he desired to effect a dissolution of the Union, or the abolition of slavery, or thirdly, a civil war between the North and the South? What was the motive, especially of those Democratic leaders, who assisted in destroying the party?

Mr. Buchanan was undoubtedly the most influential person, and one of the most zealous in consummating the movement. What then was his motive in assisting to destroy the party which had made him President, unless it would agree to abandon the platform on which he had been elected? Was he

then a disunionist! On the contrary, after the division had occurred, whenever it was suggested to him that disunion would be the result, he seemed shocked and recoiled from the idea with horror. Had he any other adequate motive?

After the failure of his Kansas policy, early in his administration, the course of the Washington "Union" satisfied me that he intended to break up the Democratic National Convention if he could do so, but none of the Senators or members to whom I then made the suggestion, could be induced to concur in the opinion. Afterwards it became more evident, that he cherished the idea that if the party convention could be broken up, then, the country would rally around him to save the Union. As no one else seemed to share with him in this view, his persistence in entertaining it, can only be accounted for upon the principle stated by Watkins Leigh, that when the idea once entered a man's brain that he was to be elected President, it was a well settled fact in physical science, that no power was known sufficiently potent, to dislodge it. Again, Mr. Buchanan was like most timid, insincere men, very malicions, and bore an intense hatred to Douglas. Anxiety to defeat him was a most powerful motive.

It is undoubtedly true that after the developments consequent on Lincoln's election were made, he did regard disunion as inevitable, and made up his mind to accept it as the decree of fate. But at the time when he was most actively aiding the early movement in that direction, it does not seem that he was actuated by such a purpose.

Mr. Buchanan's capacity is not generally understood by the public. His failure as an executive officer causes him to be underrated in other respects. He was not only so insincere as to exemplify the remark that "Pope was so insincere that he took tea by strategem," but he was really possessed of great cunning. Intelligent, well informed, and most plausible in manner, his powers of deception were very great, and his capacity for personal intrigue was extraordinary. In addition to these qualities, he was in a position to use very dexterously and effectually the advantages which his official situation gave him. Whether the vacant Supreme Judgeship, which he held so long suspended, was potent with such men as Caleb Cushing and Daniel S. Dickinson, and thus enabled him to secure their co-operation, is a question for speculation. The very fact that no one could suppose that Mr. Buchanan, situated as he was, would favor any movement that might even remotely endanger the Union, tended to throw all men off their guard, and induced them the more readily to join in what he urged. No man ever seemed to be more earnest, industrious and indefatigable than he was, and few were more successful than he was in securing co-operation.

Senator Slidell gave a most powerful support to the movement, not only in Washington, but in Charleston, to which city he and Senator Bright went during the sitting of the convention. But I have no reason to believe that, at that period, he was seeking disunion. On the contrary, when I referred to it as a probable result of the division of the party, he repelled it, and, in fact, seemed to turn away from the idea as one not worthy of consideration. His colleague and intimate personal friend, Mr. Benjamin, said to me in the early part of the session following Lincoln's election, that he had been absent from home (in the west, I think,) at the time of the presidential election, and that on his return to New Orleans immediately after it, he was more surprised than he had perhaps ever been in his life, to see the feeling manifested among the people. He declared that the most astonishing part of it to him was that those who were regarded as the least informed, mechanics, laborers and others, termed the lower classes, were the most anxious for resistance. They

knew, in truth, that disgrace was not prudence and that the overthrow of the Constitution and the destruction of their social system could only bring upon them the greatest injury. It is clear, therefore, that Mr. Benjamin did not work for the movement with any such view.

As to Mr. Jefferson Davis, the few conversations I had with him, as well as all I heard from others, left me in doubt as to his motives. When his resolutions were first introduced, they were regarded by some as a mere effort on his part to get ahead of his colleague, Mr. Brown, as the exponent of the extreme views of Mississippi. It soon became manifest, however, that further purposes were entertained. I recollect that on a certain day in the spring, as we were walking out of the capitol grounds into Pennsylvania avenue, he appealed to me with much earnestness, to join in his movement. He had not long previously gotten a letter from some foolish man in the North, (I think it was Davis, of New York, who had written some of the Jack Downing letters) urging that the South should insist on its rights, &c. After reiterating my objections to his movement, I said: "I think, Mr. Davis, even if we all go together into the presidential fight, our adversaries will beat us, and thus give us a broad issue to go before our constituents on." He replied, with a scornful look, "It has never entered into my mind that they can beat us, whether we are united or not." When it is remembered that Fremont had nearly been elected in the preceding contest, and that the antislavery movement had evidently since been gaining strength, it seems singular that any one should believe that the Democratic party, divided between two candidates, would be in no danger of defeat. Even after the election, it was stated to me by Mr. Keitt and others, that Mr. Davis seemed reluctant to go with the secession movement. I, therefore, decline under all the circumstances to entertain a decided opinion as to his purposes.

Another Senator from one of the Cotton States was urging me to join them about that time. I said that if we acted together, and made it evident that we had done all in our power to protect our section in the Union, the South would unite for defense, but that, on the other hand, if it should appear that we were seeking disunion as a matter of choice, such States as North Carolina and Virginia would not join in the movement. He replied, with a haughty air: "We do not expect North Carolina and Virginia to do any of the fighting. All we desire is the right to march across your territory, to get at the yankees." Of course all argument was wasted on such persons. That such a man as Senator Bright, living as he did in Indiana, should have desired the secession of the Southern Democracy from him, seems little more wise than the evolution of the man, who in the top of a tree, sawed off the limb on which he was standing. His course and that of such other Northern Democrats as Cushing, Dickinson and the like, seems not to be accounted for upon any of those principles, which usually influence men of intelligence. It appeared strange that such a man as ex-Senator Bayard would consent to become president of the seceders convention at Charleston. Possibly such gentlemen as these, had so much confidence in Buchanan, Davis, Slidell and others, that they, without much thought, followed them confidingly. The Whigs of the South for many years, with little less folly, adhered to the Northern Whigs, who were for doing the very acts that those in the South declared would justify revolution. I have observed in war, that soldiers after a time, acquired such confidence in their officers, that they, without thinking for themselves, blindly did whatever they were ordered to do.

Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Davis and Mr. Slidell were intensely hostile to Mr. Douglas personally, while Mr. Bright had shown for some time previously, jealousy and dislike to him. The first three were men of strong feelings of