be named
for the great office. The last of these--the Charleston convention
of 1860--is now historic. It assembled amid intense party passion,
and after a turbulent session that seemed the omen of its approaching
doom, adjourned to a later day to Baltimore. Senator Douglas there
received the almost solid vote of the Northern, and a portion of
that of the Border States, but the hostility of the extreme Southern
leaders to his candidacy was implacable to the end. What had seemed
inevitable from the beginning at length occurred, and the great
historical party--which had administered the Government with brief
intermissions from the inauguration of Jefferson--was hopelessly
rent asunder. This startling event--and what it might portend--
gave pause to thoughtful men of all parties. It was not a mere
incident, but an epoch in history. Mr. Blaine, in his "Twenty
Years of Congress," says:

"The situation was the cause of solicitude and even grief with
thousands to whom the old party was peculiarly endeared. The
traditions of Jefferson, of Madison, of Jackson, were devoutly
treasured; and the splendid achievements of the American Democracy
were recounted with the pride which attaches to an honorable family
inheritance. The fact was recalled that the Republic had grown to
its imperial dimensions under Democratic statesmanship. It was
remembered that Louisiana had been acquired from France, Florida
from Spain, the independent Republic of Texas annexed, and California,
with its vast dependencies, and its myriad millions of treasure,
ceded by Mexico, all under Democratic administrations, and in spite
of the resistance of their opponents. That a party whose history was
inwoven with the glory of the Republic should now come to its end in
a quarrel over the status of the negro in a country where his labor
was not wanted, was to many of its members as incomprehensible
as it was sorrowful and exasperating. They might have restored
the party to harmony, but at the very height of the factional
contest, the representatives of both sections were hurried forward
to the National Convention of 1860, with principle subordinated to
passion, with judgment displaced by a desire for revenge."

The withdrawal from the Baltimore Convention of a large majority
of the Southern delegates and a small following, led by Caleb
Cushing and Benjamin F. Butler from the North, resulted in the
immediate nomination by the requisite two-thirds vote of