Part 18

═════════════╤═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ │ 3D BALLOT. STATES. ├───────┬──────┬───────┬────────┬───────┬───────┬─────────── │Seward.│Bates.│ Chase.│Lincoln.│McLean.│Dayton.│C. M. Clay. ─────────────┼───────┼──────┼───────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼─────────── Maine │ 10 │ ―― │ ―― │ 6 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― New Hampshire│ 1 │ ―― │ ―― │ 9 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Vermont │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 10 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Massachusetts│ 18 │ ―― │ ―― │ 8 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Rhode Island │ 1 │ ―― │ 1 │ 5 │ 1 │ ―― │ ―― Connecticut │ 1 │ 4 │ 2 │ 4 │ ―― │ ―― │ 1 New York │ 70 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― New Jersey │ 5 │ ―― │ ―― │ 8 │ ―― │ 1 │ ―― Pennsylvania │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 52 │ 2 │ ―― │ ―― Maryland │ 2 │ ―― │ ―― │ 9 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Delaware │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 6 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Virginia │ 8 │ ―― │ ―― │ 14 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Kentucky │ 6 │ ―― │ 4 │ 13 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Ohio │ ―― │ ―― │ 15 │ 29 │ 2 │ ―― │ ―― Indiana │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 26 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Missouri │ ―― │ 18 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Michigan │ 12 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Illinois │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 22 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Texas │ 6 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Wisconsin │ 10 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Iowa │ 2 │ ―― │ 1/2 │ 5-1/2│ ―― │ ―― │ ―― California │ 8 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Minnesota │ 8 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Oregon │ 1 │ ―― │ ―― │ 4 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Kansas │ 6 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Nebraska │ 3 │ ―― │ 2 │ 1 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Dist. of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Columbia │ 2 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― ├───────┼──────┼───────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼─────────── Totals │ 180 │ 22 │ 24-1/2│ 231-1/2│ 5 │ 1 │ 1 ═════════════╧═══════╧══════╧═══════╧════════╧═══════╧═══════╧═══════════

So keen were the disappointments of the New York delegation, and Mr. Weed, who was the Seward leader, that when earnestly urged to name a candidate for Vice-President, who would have been accepted by a nearly unanimous vote, they churlishly refused to do so. Governor Morgan would have been taken as the candidate to emphasize the desire of the friends of Lincoln to recognize the friends of Seward, but he peremptorily refused to accept it, and the convention then nominated Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, as a representative of the Democratic-Republican element; but New York divided her vote between five candidates, giving a bare majority to Hamlin from personal choice.

As the friends of Seward declined to indicate a candidate for Vice-President the convention reassembled in the evening to enter a free-for-all race for the second place on the ticket. Hamlin commanded nearly a solid vote from New England that attracted others. He was known throughout the country as the man who had resigned the chairmanship of his committee in the Senate in 1856 to declare himself for Fremont, although an earnest Democrat up to that time, and that he had accepted the Republican nomination for Governor and won out by an overwhelming majority. There was a strong sentiment in the convention in favor of Cassius M. Clay, not because he was personally preferred, but because it was thought wise by many to desectionalize the party by taking a candidate for Vice-President from a Slave State. Hamlin had a good lead on the 1st ballot, and on the 2d won an easy victory. The two ballots were as follows:

═════════════╤════════════════════════════════════════════╦══════════════════════ │ 1ST BALLOT. ║ 2D BALLOT. STATES. ├───────────┬───────┬───────┬────────┬───────╫───────┬─────┬──────── │C. M. Clay.│ Banks.│Reeder.│Hickman.│Hamlin.║Hamlin.│Clay.│Hickman. ─────────────┼───────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼───────╫───────┼─────┼──────── Maine │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 16 ║ 16 │ ―― │ ―― New Hampshire│ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 10 ║ 10 │ ―― │ ―― Vermont │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 10 ║ 10 │ ―― │ ―― Massachusetts│ ―― │ 20 │ 1 │ 1 │ 1 ║ 26 │ ―― │ ―― Rhode Island │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 8 ║ 8 │ ―― │ ―― Connecticut │ 2 │ 1 │ ―― │ 2 │ 5 ║ 10 │ ―― │ 2 New York │ 9 │ 4 │ 2 │ 11 │ 35 ║ 70 │ ―― │ ―― New Jersey │ 1 │ ―― │ 7 │ ―― │ 6 ║ 14 │ ―― │ ―― Pennsylvania │ 4-1/2 │ 2-1/2│ 24 │ 7 │ 11 ║ 54 │ ―― │ ―― Maryland │ 2 │ ―― │ ―― │ 1 │ 8 ║ 10 │ 1 │ ―― Delaware │ 3 │ ―― │ ―― │ 1 │ 2 ║ 6 │ ―― │ ―― Virginia │ 23 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― ║ ―― │ 23 │ ―― Kentucky │ 23 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― ║ ―― │ 28 │ ―― Ohio │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 48 ║ 46 │ ―― │ ―― Indiana │ 18 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 8 ║ 12 │ 14 │ ―― Missouri │ ―― │ 9 │ ―― │ 9 │ ―― ║ 13 │ 5 │ ―― Michigan │ 4 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 8 ║ 8 │ 4 │ ―― Illinois │ 2 │ ―― │ 16 │ 2 │ 2 ║ 20 │ 2 │ ―― Texas │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― ║ ―― │ 6 │ ―― Wisconsin │ 5 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 5 ║ 5 │ 5 │ ―― Iowa │ ―― │ 1 │ 1 │ ―― │ 6 ║ 3 │ ―― │ ―― California │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 8 │ ―― ║ 7 │ 1 │ ―― Minnesota │ 1 │ ―― │ ―― │ 1 │ 6 ║ 7 │ 1 │ ―― Oregon │ ―― │ 1 │ ―― │ 3 │ 1 ║ 3 │ ―― │ 2 Kansas │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ 6 │ ―― ║ 2 │ 1 │ 3 Nebraska │ 1 │ ―― │ ―― │ 5 │ ―― ║ ―― │ ―― │ 6 District of │ │ │ │ │ ║ │ │ Columbia│ 2 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― ║ 2 │ ―― │ ―― ├───────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼───────╫───────┼─────┼──────── Totals │ 101-1/2 │ 38-1/2│ 51 │ 58 │ 194 ║ 367 │ 86 │ 13 ═════════════╧═══════════╧═══════╧═══════╧════════╧═══════╩═══════╧═════╧════════

The Chicago convention that nominated Lincoln for President was not only the ablest national political body that ever met in the country up to that time, but it exhibited the highest type of political strategy. It has never since then been equalled in ability and leadership, with the single exception of the Republican convention of 1880, in which the friends of Grant made their last stand to give their chieftain a third term. As compared with these two, all subsequent conventions were tame.

The following platform was unanimously adopted:

_Resolved_, That we, the delegated representatives of the Republican electors of the United States, in convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we owe to our constituents and our country, unite in the following declarations:

1. That the history of the nation, during the last four years, has fully established the propriety and necessity of the organization and perpetuation of the Republican party, and that the causes which called it into existence are permanent in their nature, and now, more than ever before, demand its peaceful and constitutional triumph.

2. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution—“that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”—is essential to the preservation of our republican institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the States, and the union of the States, must and shall be preserved.

3. That to the union of the States this nation owes its unprecedented increase in population, its surprising development of material resources, its rapid augmentation of wealth, its happiness at home, and its honor abroad; and we hold in abhorrence all schemes for disunion, come from whatever source they may; and we congratulate the country that no Republican member of Congress has uttered or countenanced the threats of disunion so often made by Democratic members, without rebuke and with applause from their political associates; and we denounce those threats of disunion, in case of a popular overthrow of their ascendancy, as denying the vital principles of a free government, and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the imperative duty of an indignant people sternly to rebuke and forever silence.

4. That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.

5. That the present Democratic administration has far exceeded our worst apprehensions, in its measureless subserviency to the exactions of a sectional interest, as especially evinced in its desperate exertions to force the infamous Lecompton Constitution upon the protesting people of Kansas; in construing the personal relation between master and servant to involve an unqualified property in person; in its attempted enforcement, everywhere, on land and sea, through the intervention of Congress and of the Federal courts, of the extreme pretensions of a purely local interest; and in its general and unvarying abuse of the power entrusted to it by a confiding people.

6. That the people justly view with alarm the reckless extravagance which pervades every department of the Federal Government; that a return to rigid economy and accountability is indispensable to arrest the systematic plunder of the public treasury by favored partisans; while the recent startling developments of frauds and corruptions at the Federal metropolis show that an entire change of administration is imperatively demanded.

7. That the new dogma that the Constitution, of its own force, carries slavery into any or all of the Territories of the United States, is a dangerous political heresy, at variance with the explicit provisions of that instrument itself, with contemporaneous exposition, and with legislative and judicial precedent; is revolutionary in its tendency, and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country.

8. That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; that as our republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individual, to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States.

9. That we brand the recent reopening of the African slave-trade, under the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, as a crime against humanity, and a burning shame to our country and age; and we call upon Congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final suppression of that execrable traffic.

10. That in the recent vetoes, by their Federal governors, of the acts of the Legislatures of Kansas and Nebraska, prohibiting slavery in those Territories, we find a practical illustration of the boasted Democratic principle of non-intervention and popular sovereignty, embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and a demonstration of the deception and fraud involved therein.

11. That Kansas should of right be immediately admitted as a State under the Constitution recently formed and adopted by her people and accepted by the House of Representatives.

12. That, while providing revenue for the support of the General Government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country; and we commend that policy of national exchanges which secures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor, and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence.

13. That we protest against any sale or alienation to others of the public lands held by actual settlers, and against any view of the free-homestead policy which regards the settlers as paupers or suppliants for public bounty; and we demand the passage by Congress of the complete and satisfactory homestead measure which has already passed the House.

14. That the Republican party is opposed to any change in our naturalization laws, or any State legislation by which the rights of citizenship hitherto accorded to immigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad.

The bitter estrangement of Douglas and President Buchanan made an impassable gulf between Douglas and the radical Southerners who stood by Buchanan. Douglas had a desperate contest in his State for re-election to the Senate in 1858, when he was opposed by Lincoln as the Republican candidate, and was even more vindictively opposed by all the power of the national administration. Lincoln won the State, as he carried the Republican or Union State ticket, but the legislative districts were so gerrymandered that Douglas won the Legislature and came back in triumph to defy the President. There was no reasonable prospect, therefore, of Democratic unity in the campaign of 1860. Douglas, who was the most astute of all the Democratic politicians of his day, clearly foresaw that the violent attitude of the South must result in the defeat of the slavery party and the early extinction of slavery; but slavery had always been omnipotent since the battle began, and it would not learn that its mastery could be overthrown.

The Democratic National Convention was called for the first time to meet far South, in the city of Charleston, the home of Calhoun, the cradle of nullification, and the one place in the Union where secession ran rampant. It was obviously intended to environ the convention with an army of the ablest Southern leadership. The convention met on the 23d of April, 1860, and every State was fully represented, with double delegations from Illinois and New York. The few administration followers in Illinois had made a rump Democratic organization and sent an anti-Douglas delegation to Charleston, and in New York they had another contest between the “Hards” and the “Softs,” the “Hards” being opposed to Douglas and the “Softs” for him. Caleb Cushing was made permanent president, and it was decided that no ballot should be had for President until a platform was adopted. On the following day the convention did not get beyond the settlement of contested seats, admitting the “Softs” of New York and the Douglas men from Illinois, and the debates on even the most trivial disputes were unusually bitter. On the third day threats of bolting became common among the Southern delegates, as the admission of the Douglas delegates from New York and Illinois clearly indicated that the Douglas people controlled the convention. On the fourth day majority and minority reports were made on the platform, the majority by Mr. Avery, of North Carolina, and the minority by Mr. Payne, of Ohio. General Benjamin F. Butler, who was a prominent delegate in the convention, as he would be anywhere, and who voted for Jefferson Davis for the Presidency right along, presented a minority report of his own, and Senator Bayard, of Delaware, followed with a platform of his invention. On the fifth day Senator Bigler, of Pennsylvania, moved to recommit the platforms to the committee with instructions to report in an hour, and the motion to recommit was carried, 152 to 151, while the motion to instruct was lost by a very large vote. On the same day Mr. Avery, from the majority of the committee on platform, reported a new declaration of principles, and an elaborate discussion followed, and Mr. Samuels, of Iowa, presented a new minority report.

After a protracted and ill-tempered debate, it was finally decided that the vote on the platform should be taken on Monday, the 30th, and on that day the convention proceeded to vote without debate. Butler’s platform was rejected by 198 to 105. Next the minority report of Mr. Samuels, being the Douglas platform, was carried by 165 to 138. The report of the committee as amended was then adopted without a vote by States, upon which the Alabama delegation presented a written protest announcing the purpose of the delegates to withdraw from the convention. The Mississippi, Florida, and Texas delegations gave like notice, and the Louisiana delegation excepting two, the South Carolina delegation excepting three, with three of the Arkansas delegation, two of the Delaware delegation, including Senator Bayard, and one from North Carolina then withdrew from the convention. There were great pomp and ceremony in this proceeding, as formal protests and elaborate speeches were made by the retiring delegates. The convention was thus largely depleted, but a resolution, declaring that two-thirds of a full convention, being 202 votes, shall be necessary to make nominations, was adopted by 141 to 112. The convention then proceeded to ballot for President with the following result: