rehend their Southern allies. In their
anxiety to impress the slave-holders with the depth and malignity
of Northern anti-slavery feeling, they had unwittingly implicated
themselves as accessories to the crime they charged on others. If
they were, in fact, the friends to the South which they so loudly
proclaimed themselves to be, now was the time to show their faith
by their works. The Southern delegates had come to the convention
in a truculent spirit,--as men who felt that they were enduring
wrongs which must then and there be righted. They had a grievance
for which they demanded redress, as a preliminary step to further
conference. They wanted no evasion, they would accept no delay.
The Northern delegates begged for the nomination of Douglas as the
certain method of defeating the Republicans, and asked that they
might not be borne down by a platform which they could not carry
in the North. The Southern delegates demanded a platform which
should embody the Constitutional rights of the slave-holder, and
they would not qualify or conceal their requirements. If the North
would sustain those rights, all would be well. If the North would
not sustain them, it was of infinite moment to the South to be
promptly and definitely advised of the fact. The Southern delegates
were not presenting a particular man as candidate. On that point
they would be liberal and conciliatory. But they were fighting
for a principle, and would not surrender it or compromise it.

The supporters of Douglas from the North saw that they would be
utterly destroyed at home if they consented to the extreme Southern
demand. Their destruction would be equally sure even with Douglas
as their candidate if the platform should announce principles which
he had been controverting ever since his revolt against the Lecompton
bill. For the first time in the history of national Democratic
conventions the Northern delegates refused to submit to the exactions
of the South. Hitherto platforms had been constructed just as
Southern men dictated. Candidates had been taken as their preference
directed. But now the Northern men, pressed by the rising tide of
Republicanism in every free State, demanded some ground on which
they could stand and make a contest at home.

PROCEEDINGS OF CHARLESTON CONVENTION.

Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts was chosen President of the Convention.
The political career of Mr. Cushing had not