The North-western delegates, on their return home, congratulated themselves upon the presumption, that if they had ripped up the Democratic party, they had shown the Republicans that they, as Democrats, were not doughfaces. The reflection that they were no more to be reproached as serfs of the South, seemed sweet and ample consolation for all the struggles and perils through which they had passed, and the pangs they had suffered in the dissolution of the party. They talked all the way over the mountains to this effect: Well, there is one thing of which we can't be accused any more. There was not a doughface shown in the North-west.' The fact is the South was never before quite so well matched in her own game of brag and intolerable arrogance. They never before met in Convention face to face, with oath to oath, and menace for menace, and told with as much vehemence as they threatened to secede, that they might "do it and be d-d."

66

I shared a railroad seat, when crossing the mountains, with a Northwestern delegate, one of the most zealous of the partisans of Douglas. He was in a bad humor with the South. I asked what was the matter. He said: 66 I have been vexed. After all the battles we have fought for the South-to be served in this manner-it is ungrateful and mean." He wanted the South to be made sweat under an Abolition President. He was glad Seward was not the Republican candidate, for he would be too easy on the South. He hoped Lincoln would make them sweat. The Southerners had been ruling over niggers so long they thought they could rule white men just the same. The South should not go out of the Union either. The would stay in and sweat. The fugitive slaves might go to Canada or to the devil in welcome, and their masters after them. He never would trouble his head about them any more. He did not care whether the Fugitive Slave law was enforced or not. He declared the South had alienated her best friends forever, and must now do the best she could for herself. He was also disposed to disparage the Southern country, depreciate the resources of the South, and magnify the evils that beset her.

And this conversation, I am convinced, represents the feeling with which the North-western delegates crossed the mountains returning home. The extent and bearings of the political revolution, of which this is one of the indications, may be further illustrated from the barroom talk at Baltimore. One delegate from Indiana was happy to tell the Seceders that the valley of the Wabash was worth more than all the country between the Potomac and the Rio Grande, niggers included. And then an Ohioan boasted that there was "one town in a corner of Ohio, called Cincinnati, worth more than the whole d-d State of Alabama. Another assured the Seceders that he thought more of Black Republicans than of such fellows as they were, and that if there was to be a fight between sections, he was for his own side of the Ohio.

THE SECOND RICHMOND CONVENTION.

During the session of the Baltimore Convention, the South Carolina delegates remained at Richmond, and after the 21st, the day to which they had adjourned, they adjourned from day to day.

On the evening of Tuesday, the 26th, a number of the Southern delegates were in the city, among others, Messrs. Scott and Yancey of Alabama, and the Convention assembled in Metropolitan Hall. Čol. Irwin, the President, called the Convention to order.

Mr. Middleton of South Carolina made a report from the committee on Credentials on the New York case (the New York Commissioners). The committee found that those commissioners had been " 'duly elected as delegates from the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth Congressional Districts of New York to the Richmond Convention."

After some discussion the whole matter was laid on the table by the following vote:

AYES-Virginia, South Carolina 7, Florida 3, Alabama 9, Mississippi 7-27.

NOES-North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia 10, Louisiana 6, Texas 4-21.

Mr. Dargam of South Carolina then offered the following resolution: Resolved, That this Convention approve of the Platform of Principles recommended by the majority report at the Charleston Convention.

The question was put, and the resolution was adopted unanimously, amid loud cheering.

Mr. Furman of South Carolina, on behalf of his delegation, offered the following resolution:

Resolved, That John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, and Joseph Lane of Oregon, are, and they are hereby declared to be the choice, unanimously, of this Convention, for President and Vice-President of the United States.

There were a few votes of thanks, as usual on such occasions, and the Convention adjourned sine die.

The Richmond Enquirer says:

"The galleries during the session were thronged, and whilst there was great enthusiasm, there was no one occasion, in the slightest degree, to disturb good order. All the proceedings were conducted with a calmness, dignity and decorum which we have never seen excelled."

THE lesson to the Nation of the PRESIDENTIAL CAUCUSES of 1860 is the necessity for the abolition of the Caucus System, which, in whatever party organization operative, is a system of swindling, by which the people are defrauded out of the effective exercise of the right of suffrage. There is no honesty in caucuses, no sound principle or good policy, except by accident; and the accidents that furnish the exception are rare indeed.

The revenues of King Caucus are corruption funds—and his government costs the country at least fifty million dollars annually-his platforms of principles are elaborations of false pretenses-his nominees are his obsequious viceroys—and he is the power behind the chairs of our chief magistrates, and under the tables of our cabinets, far more potent than those who visibly assume authority.

If a Republican form of government is to be preserved in our confederacy, the people must make a bonfire of his throne.

The official reports from which this compilation has been largely made up, appeared in the following journals: The Mercury and the Courier of Charleston; the Press and Tribune of Chicago; the Baltimore Clipper (for the "Constitutional Union" Convention); the Baltimore American and Sun, for the National Democratic Conventions; and the Richmond Enquirer for the Convention held in that city,

ERRATA.

Page 9, first line, second paragraph, for "Magnolia Hall" read "Hibernia Hall."

Page 31, last line, read "equivocal" for "equivalent."

Page 101, last line of page, read "leonine " instead of "canine."