Part 36 (1/2)

The lines upon which the Charleston convention would divide, were sharply drawn by a series of resolutions presented to the Senate by Jefferson Davis. They were intended to serve as an ultimatum, and they were so understood by Northern Democrats. They were deliberately wrought out in conference as the final expression of Southern conviction. In explicit language the right of either Congress or a territorial legislature to impair the const.i.tutional right of property in slaves, was denied. In case of unfriendly legislation, it was declared to be the duty of Congress to provide adequate protection to slave property. Popular sovereignty was completely discarded by the a.s.sertion that the people of a Territory might pa.s.s upon the question of slavery only when they formed a State const.i.tution.[817]

As the delegates to the Democratic convention began to gather in the latter part of April, the center of political interest s.h.i.+fted from Was.h.i.+ngton to Charleston. Here the battle between the factions was to be fought out, but without the presence of the real leaders. The advantages of organization were with the Douglas men. The delegations from the Northwest were devoted, heart and soul, to their chief. As they pa.s.sed through the capital on their journey to the South, they gathered around him with noisy demonstrations of affection; and when they continued on their way, they were more determined than ever to secure his nomination.[818] From the South, too, every Douglas man who was likely to carry weight in his community, was brought to Charleston to labor among the Ultras of his section.[819] The Douglas headquarters in Hibernian Hall bore witness to the business-like way in which his candidacy was being promoted. Not the least striking feature within the committee rooms was the ample supply of Sheahan's _Life of Stephen A. Douglas_, fresh from the press.[820]

Recognized leader of the Douglas forces was Colonel Richardson of Illinois, a veteran in convention warfare, seasoned by years of congressional service and by long practice in managing men.[821] It was he who had led the Douglas cohorts in the Cincinnati convention.

The memory of that defeat still rankled, and he was not disposed to yield to like contingencies. Indeed, the spirit of the delegates from the Northwest,--and they seemed likely to carry the other Northern delegates with them,--was offensively aggressive; and their demonstrations of enthusiasm a.s.sumed a minatory aspect, as they learned of the presence of Slidell, Bigler, and Bright, and witnessed the efforts of the administration to defeat the hero of the Lecompton fight.[822]

Those who observed the proceedings of the convention could not rid themselves of the impression that opposing parties were wrestling for control, so bitter and menacing was the interchange of opinion. It was matter of common report that the Southern delegations would withdraw if Douglas were nominated.[823] Equally ominous was the rumor that Richardson was authorized to withdraw the name of Douglas, if the platform adopted should advocate the protection of slavery in the Territories.[824] The temper of the convention was such as to preclude an amicable agreement, even if Douglas withdrew.

The advantages of compact organization and conscious purpose were apparent in the first days of the convention. At every point the Douglas men forced the fighting. On the second day, it was voted that where a delegation had not been instructed by a State convention how to give its vote, the individual delegates might vote as they pleased.

This rule would work to the obvious advantage of Douglas.[825] On the third day, the convention refused to admit the contesting delegations from New York and Illinois, represented by Fernando Wood and Isaac Cook respectively.[826]

Meantime the committee on resolutions, composed of one delegate from each State, was in the throes of platform-making. Both factions had agreed to frame a platform before naming a candidate. But here, as in the convention, the possibility of amiable discussion and mutual concession was precluded. The Southern delegates voted in caucus to hold to the Davis resolutions; the Northern, with equal stubbornness, clung to the well-known principles of Douglas. On the fifth day of the convention, April 27th, the committee presented a majority report and two minority reports. The first was essentially an epitome of the Davis resolutions; the second reaffirmed the Cincinnati platform, at the same time pledging the party to abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court on those questions of const.i.tutional law which should affect the rights of property in the States or Territories; and the third report simply reaffirmed the Cincinnati platform without additional resolutions.[827] The defense of the main minority report fell to Payne of Ohio. In a much more conciliatory spirit than Douglas men had hitherto shown, he a.s.sured the Southern members of the convention that every man who had signed the report felt that ”upon the result of our deliberations and the action of this convention, in all human probability, depended the fate of the Democratic party and the destiny of the Union.” The North was devoted to the principle of popular sovereignty, but ”we ask nothing for the people of the territories but what the Const.i.tution allows them.”[828] The argument of Payne was cogent and commended itself warmly to Northern delegates; but it struck Southern ears as a tiresome reiteration of arguments drawn from premises which they could not admit.

It was Yancey of Alabama, chief among fire-eaters, who, in the afternoon of the same day, warmed the c.o.c.kles of the Southern heart.

Gifted with all the graces of Southern orators, he made an eloquent plea for Southern rights. Protection was what the South demanded: protection in their const.i.tutional rights and in their sacred rights of property. The proposition contained in the minority report would ruin the South. ”You acknowledged that slavery did not exist by the law of nature or by the law of G.o.d--that it only existed 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 anti-slavery would now have been dead in your midst....

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.”[829]

These words brought Senator Pugh to his feet. Wrought to a dangerous pitch of excitement, he thanked G.o.d that a bold and honest man from the South had at last spoken, and had told the whole of the Southern demands. The South demanded now nothing less than that Northern Democrats should declare slavery to be right. ”Gentlemen of the South,” he exclaimed, ”you mistake us--you mistake us--we will not do it.”[830] The convention adjourned before Pugh had finished; but in the evening he told the Southern delegates plainly that Northern Democrats were not children at the bidding of the South. If the gentlemen from the South could stay only on the terms they proposed, they must go. For once the hall was awed into quiet, for Senator Pugh stood close to Douglas and the fate of the party hung in the balance.[831]

Sunday intervened, but the situation remained unchanged. Gloom settled down upon the further deliberations of the convention. On Monday, the minority report (the Douglas platform) was adopted by a vote of 165 to 138. Thereupon the chairman of the Alabama delegation protested and announced the formal withdrawal of his State from the convention. The crisis had arrived. Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas followed in succession, with valedictories which seemed directed less to the convention than to the Union. Indeed, more than one face blanched at the probable significance of this secession.

Southerners of the Yancey following, however, were jubilant and had much to say about an independent Southern Republic.[832]

On the following day, what Yancey scornfully dubbed the ”Rump Convention,” proceeded to ballot, having first voted that two-thirds of the full vote of the convention should be necessary to nominate. On the first ballot, Douglas received 145-1/2, Hunter of Virginia 42, Guthrie of Kentucky 35-1/2; and the remaining thirty were divided among several candidates. As 202 votes were necessary for a choice, the hopelessness of the outlook was apparent to all. Nevertheless, the balloting continued, the vote of Douglas increasing on four ballots to 152-1/2. After the thirty-sixth ballot, he failed to command more than 151-1/2. In all, fifty-seven ballots were taken.[833] On the tenth day of the convention, it was voted to adjourn to meet at Baltimore, on the 18th of June.

The followers of Douglas left Charleston with wrath in their hearts.

Chagrin and disappointment alternated with bitterness and resentment toward their Southern brethren. Moreover, contact with the South, so far from having lessened their latent distrust of its culture and inst.i.tutions, had widened the gulf between the sections. Such speeches as that of Goulden of Georgia, who had boldly advocated the re-opening of the African slave-trade, saying coa.r.s.ely that ”the African slave-trade man is the Union man--the Christian man,” caused a certain ethical revolt in the feelings of men, hitherto not particularly susceptible to moral appeals on the slavery question.[834] Added to all these c.u.mulative grievances was the uncomfortable probability, that the next President was about to be nominated in the Republican convention at Chicago.

What were the feelings of the individual who had been such a divisive force in the Charleston convention? The country was not long left in doubt. Douglas was quite ready to comment upon the outcome; and it needed only the bitter arraignment of his theories by Davis, to bring him armed _cap-a-pie_ into the arena.

Aided by his friend Pugh, who read long extracts from letters and speeches, Douglas made a systematic review of Democratic principles and policy since 1848. His object, of course, was to demonstrate his own consistency, and at the same time to convict his critics of apostasy from the party creed. There was, inevitably, much tiresome repet.i.tion in all this. It was when he directed his remarks to the issues at Charleston that Douglas warmed to his subject. He refused to recognize the right of a caucus of the Senate or of the House, to prescribe new tests, to draft party platforms. That was a task reserved, under our political system, for national conventions, made up of delegates chosen by the people. Tried by the standard of the only Democratic organization competent to p.r.o.nounce upon questions of party faith, he was no longer a heretic, no longer an outlaw from the Democratic party, no longer a rebel against the Democratic organization. ”The party decided at Charleston also, by a majority of the whole electoral college, that I was the choice of the Democratic party of America for the Presidency of the United States, giving me a majority of fifty votes over all other candidates combined; and yet my Democracy is questioned!” ”But,” he added, and there is no reason to doubt his sincerity, ”my friends who know me best know that I have no personal desire or wish for the nomination;... know that my name never would have been presented at Charleston, except for the attempt to proscribe me as a heretic, too unsound to be the chairman of a committee in this body, where I have held a seat for so many years without a suspicion resting on my political fidelity. I was forced to allow my name to go there in self-defense; and I will now say that had any gentleman, friend or foe, received a majority of that convention over me, the lightning would have carried a message withdrawing my name from the convention.”[835]

Douglas was ready to acquit his colleagues in the Senate of a purpose to dissolve the Union, but he did not hesitate to a.s.sert that such principles as Yancey had advocated at Charleston would lead ”directly and inevitably” to a dissolution of the Union. Why was the South so eager to repudiate the principle of non-intervention? By it they had converted New Mexico into slave Territory; by it, in all probability, they would extend slavery into the northern States of Mexico, when that region should be acquired. ”Why,” he asked, ”are you not satisfied with these practical results? The only difference of opinion is on the judicial question, about which we agreed to differ--which we never did decide; because, under the Const.i.tution, no tribunal on earth but the Supreme Court could decide it.” To commit the Democratic party to intervention was to make the party sectional and to invite never-ceasing conflict. ”Intervention, North or South, means disunion; non-intervention promises peace, fraternity, and perpetuity to the Union, and to all our cherished inst.i.tutions.”[836]

The challenge contained in these words was not permitted to pa.s.s unanswered. Davis replied with offensive references to the ”swelling manner” and ”egregious vanity” of the Senator from Illinois. He resented such dictation.[837] On the following day, May 17th, an exciting pa.s.sage-at-arms occurred between these representatives of the Northwest and the Southwest. Douglas repeated his belief that disunion was the prompting motive which broke up the Charleston convention. Davis resented the insinuation, with fervent protestations of affection for the Union of the States. It was the Senator from Illinois, who, in his pursuit of power, had prevented unanimity, by trying to plant his theory upon the party. The South would have no more to do with the ”rickety, double-construed platform” of 1856. ”The fact is,” said Davis, ”I have a declining respect for platforms. I would sooner have an honest man on any sort of a rickety platform you could construct, than to have a man I did not trust on the best platform which could be made. A good platform and an honest man on it is what we want.”[838] Douglas reminded his opponent sharply that the bolters at Charleston seceded, not on the candidate, but on the platform. ”If the platform is not a matter of much consequence, why press that question to the disruption of the party? Why did you not tell us in the beginning of this debate that the whole fight was against the man, and not upon the platform?”[839]

In the interval between the Charleston and the Baltimore conventions, the Davis resolutions were pressed to a vote in the Senate, with the purpose of shaping party opinion. They pa.s.sed by votes which gave a deceptive appearance of Democratic unanimity. Only Senator Pugh parted company with his Democratic colleagues on the crucial resolution; yet he represented the popular opinion at the North.[840] The futility of these resolutions, so far as practical results were concerned, was demonstrated by the adoption of Clingman's resolution, that the existing condition of the Territories did not require the intervention of Congress for the protection of property in slaves.[841] In other words, the South was insisting upon rights which were barren of practical significance. Slave-holders were insisting upon the right to carry their slaves where local conditions were unfavorable, and where therefore they had no intention of going.[842]

The nomination of Lincoln rather than Seward, at the Republican convention in Chicago, was a bitter disappointment to those who felt that the latter was the real leader of the party of moral ideas, and that the rail-splitter was simply an ”available” candidate.[843] But Douglas, with keener insight into the character of Lincoln, said to a group of Republicans at the Capitol, ”Gentlemen, you have nominated a very able and a very honest man.”[844] For the candidate of the new Const.i.tutional Union party, which had rallied the politically unattached of various opinions in a convention at Baltimore, Douglas had no such words of praise, though he recognized John Bell as a Unionist above suspicion and as an estimable gentleman.

These nominations rendered it still less prudent for Northern Democrats to accept a candidate with stronger Southern leanings than Douglas. No Northern Democrat could carry the Northern States on a Southern platform; and no Southern Democrat would accept a nomination on the Douglas platform. Unless some middle ground could be found,--and the debates in the Senate had disclosed none,--the Democrats of the North were bound to adhere to Douglas as their first and only choice in the Baltimore convention.

When the delegates rea.s.sembled in Baltimore, the factional quarrel had lost none of its bitterness. Almost immediately the convention fell foul of a complicated problem of organization. Some of the original delegates, who had withdrawn at Charleston, desired to be re-admitted.

From some States there were contesting delegations, notably from Louisiana and Alabama, where the Douglas men had rallied in force.

Those anti-Douglas delegates who were still members of the convention, made every effort to re-admit the delegations hostile to him. The action of the convention turned upon the vote of the New York delegation, which would be cast solidly either for or against the admission of the contesting delegations. For three days the fate of Douglas was in the hands of these thirty-five New Yorkers, in whom the disposition to bargain was not wanting.[845] It was at this juncture that Douglas wrote to Dean Richmond, the _Deus ex machina_ in the delegation,[846] ”If my enemies are determined to divide and destroy the Democratic party, and perhaps the country, rather than see me elected, and if the unity of the party can be preserved, and its ascendancy perpetuated by dropping my name and uniting upon some reliable non-intervention and Union-loving Democrat, I beseech you, in consultation with my friends, to pursue that course which will save the country, without regard to my individual interests. I mean all this letter implies. Consult freely and act boldly for the right.”[847]

It was precisely the ”if's” in this letter that gave the New Yorkers most concern. Where was the candidate who possessed these qualifications and who would be acceptable to the South? On the fifth day of the convention, the contesting Douglas delegations were admitted. The die was cast. A portion of the Virginia delegation then withdrew, and their example was followed by nearly all the delegates from North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Maryland. If the first withdrawal at Charleston presaged the secession of the cotton States from the Union, this pointed to the eventual secession of the border States.

On June 23d, the convention proceeded to ballot. Douglas received 173-1/2 votes; Guthrie 10; and Breckinridge 5; scattering 3. On the second ballot, Douglas received all but thirteen votes; whereupon it was moved and carried unanimously with a tremendous shout that Douglas, having received ”two-thirds of all votes given in this convention,” should be the nominee of the party.[848] Colonel Richardson then begged leave to have the Secretary read a letter from Senator Douglas. He had carried it in his pocket for three days, but the course of the bolters, he said, had prevented him from using it.[849] The letter was of the same tenor as that written to Dean Richmond. There is little likelihood that an earlier acquaintance with its contents would have changed the course of events, since so long as the platform stood unaltered, the choice of Douglas was a logical and practical necessity. Douglas and the platform were one and inseparable.