CHAPTER XV

DOUGLAS THE PATRIOT

CHARLESTON had four years before been selected as the place for the meeting of the Democratic convention. It assembled on Monday, April 23. The preliminary skirmishes revealed that there were differences that were almost certain to prove irreconcilable. Douglas had a practically solid backing from the West and Northwest. On January 4 the State Convention of Illinois had met, elected delegates to the Charleston convention, instructed them for Douglas, and adopted his slavery programme. Later Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Michigan fell into line. In other States in which prevailed the custom of choosing delegates by districts, similar resolutions, and instructions for Douglas, were adopted. The struggle was plainly between the South and the Northwest. New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and even Tennessee, proclaimed the Douglas doctrine, though they did not instruct. When the delegates met they soon learned that, as far as the platform was concerned, the choice was between Douglas's non-intervention policy and Jefferson Davis's resolutions that had been offered in the Senate calling for protection for slavery in the

Territories against unfriendly local legislation. There was a feeling-soon dispelled that the Northern Democrats would again yield, as they had so often yielded in the past. But the Northwest was a new, and most determined, factor. It was devoted to Douglas, and with good reason. Moreover, the Northern men knew that it would be impossible to carry a single Northern State on the Davis platform. As the Southern leaders had made up their mind to break up the Union if they could not have their way, there was no reason to look for any concessions from them.

What made the situation worse was the bitter feeling of the South against Douglas personally. The leaders from that section demanded not only a platform that would express their views, but one on which Douglas could not possibly stand. A year before Douglas had in the Senate warned Davis and the others that no "Democratic candidate can ever carry any one Democratic State of the North on the platform that it is the duty of the federal government to force the people of a Territory to have slavery when they do not want it." "When this, replied Davis, "shall become an unpopular doctrine, when men are to lose great States of the North by announcing it, I wish to be understood that my vote can be got for no candidate who will not be so defeated." Popular sovereignty was as hateful to men of this class as "Black Republicanism" it

self, and Douglas was as much disliked as Seward. With the help of Oregon and California the South controlled the committee on resolutions, though it did not control the convention. Having seventeen States out of thirty-three, the South elected the chairman, Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts. After deliberating for five days the resolutions committee reported two platforms, that of the majority being practically a reaffirmation of the Davis resolutions, which were themselves nothing more than a reaffirmation of the old Calhoun doctrine of the nationalization of slavery. The minority report-that made by the Douglas members-was simply an indorsement of the Cincinnati platform of four years before. After another attempt at reconciliation, the convention by a vote of 165 to 138 adopted the Douglas platform. Only twelve Southern delegates voted for it, and only thirty Northern delegates against it. In the discussion of the platform, Yancey of Mississippi at last stated with frankness the Southern view. Addressing the Northern, or Douglas, delegates, he said: "You acknowledged that slavery did not exist by the law of nature or by the law of God-that it existed only by State law; that it was wrong, but that you were not to blame. That was your position, and it was wrong. If you had taken the position directly that slavery was right and therefore ought to be you would have triumphed, and antislavery would now have been dead in your

gone

midst. But you have down before the enemy so that they have put their foot upon your neck; you will go lower and lower still, unless you change front and change your tactics. When I was a schoolboy in the Northern States abolitionists were pelted with rotten eggs. But now this band of abolitionists has spread and grown into three bands-the Black Republican, the Free-Soilers, and squatter-sovereignty men-all representing the common sentiment that slavery is wrong. I say it in no disrespect, but it is a logical argument that your admission that slavery is wrong has been the cause of all this discord." Having all his life refused to say that slavery was wrong, Douglas and his friends were now asked to say that it was right, and that it existed "by the law of nature or the law of God." And they refused. "Gentlemen of the South," said Pugh, of Ohio, "you mistake us-you mistake us; we will never do it." On the adoption of the Douglas platform the Alabama delegation withdrew from the convention. It was announced that Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas would also secede. After taking 57 ballots, on the last of which Douglas received 1451⁄2 votes-202 being necessary to a choice-the convention on May 3 adjourned to meet again in Baltimore on June 18. The seceders, after adopting a platform, adjourned to meet in Richmond on June 11. They met, and again adjourned to re

assemble in Baltimore the same day as the regular convention, June 18. In the interval the Senate was busy with the slavery question. It adopted the Davis resolutions-which were the platform of the slavery convention-by a decided majority, both Northern and Southern Democrats voting for them, with the exception of Pugh, of Ohio, and Douglas, who was not present. The discussion in the Senate, in which Douglas and Davis were the leaders, was marked by great bitterness. There was no yielding on the part of the Illinois senator. He charged his opponents, Yancey in particular, with a purpose to break up the Union, and said that such would be the inevitable effect of their doctrines. Davis was more arrogant and offensive than usual, descending to personalities, as when he referred to Douglas's "swelling manner" and "egregious vanity." While this futile debate was going on the Republicans were engaged in the business of nominating Abraham Lincoln for the presidency. Hamlin of Maine was nominated for the vice-presidency. The platform was shrewdly drawn. It declared for the Union and State rights; denounced the John Brown raid as "among the gravest of crimes"; condemned the administration, and especially its forcing a Constitution on Kansas; denied that the Constitution carried slavery into the Territories, or that Congress could give it legal existence there; condemned popular sovereignty; and of course de