he Douglas
minority. The Southern delegates keenly realized this fact, and
refused to accept the compromise. They could not endure the thought
of being placed in a position which was not only evasive, but might
be deemed cowardly. They were brave men, and wished to meet the
question bravely. They knew that the Republicans in their forthcoming
convention would explicitly demand the prohibition of slavery in
the Territories. To hesitate or falter in making an equally explicit
assertion of their own faith would subject them to fatal assault
from their slave-holding constituencies.

The Douglas men would not yield. They were enraged by the domineering
course of the Southern Democrats. They could not comprehend why
they should higgle about the language of the platform when they
could carry the slave States on the one form of expression as well
as the other. In the North it was impossible for the Democrats to
succeed with the Southern platform, but in the South it was, in
their judgment, entirely easy to carry the Douglas platform. From
the committee the contest was transferred to the convention, and
there the Douglas men were in a majority. They did not hesitate
to use their strength, and by a vote of 165 to 138 they substituted
the minority platform for that of the majority. It was skillfully
accomplished under the lead of Henry B. Payne of Ohio and Benjamin
Samuels of Iowa. The total vote of the convention was 303,--the
number of Presidential electors; and every vote had been cast on
the test question. The South voted solidly in the negative, and
was aided by the vote of California and Oregon, and a few scattering
delegates from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The other fourteen
States of the North voted unanimously on the side of Douglas, and
gave him a majority of twenty-seven.

The Northern victory brought with it a defeat. A large number of
the Southern delegates, though fairly and honorably outvoted,
refused to abide by the decision. Seven States--Louisiana, Alabama,
South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas--withdrew
from the convention, and organized a separate assemblage, presided
over by Senator James A. Bayard of Delaware. By this defection
the Douglas men were left in absolute control of the convention.
But the friends of Douglas fatally obstructed his program by
consenting to the two-thirds rule, so worded as to required that
proportion of a full convention to secure a nominatio