le
skill. It is only needful to recapitulate its chief points. It
denounced disunion, Lecomptonism, the property theory, the dogma that
the Constitution carries slavery to Territories, the reopening of the
slave-trade, the popular sovereignty and non-intervention fallacies,
and denied "the authority of Congress, of a Territorial Legislature, or
of any individuals to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory
of the United States." It opposed any change in the naturalization
laws. It recommended an adjustment of import duties to encourage the
industrial interests of the whole country. It advocated the immediate
admission of Kansas, free homesteads to actual settlers, river and
harbor improvements of a national character, and a railroad to the
Pacific Ocean. Bold on points of common agreement, it was unusually
successful in avoiding points of controversy among its followers, or
offering points for criticism to its enemies.

It is not surprising that Charleston and Chicago should furnish many
striking contrasts. At the Charleston Convention, the principal
personal incident was a long and frank speech from one Gaulden, a
Savannah slave-trader, in advocacy of the reopening of the African
slave-trade.[5] In the Chicago Convention, the exact and extreme
opposite of such a theme created one of the most interesting of the
debates. The platform had been read and received with tremendous
cheers, when Mr. Giddings, of Ohio, who was everywhere eager to insist
upon what he designated as the "primal truths" of the Declaration of
Independence, moved to amend the first resolution by incorporating in
it the phrase which announces the right of all men to "life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness." The convention was impatient to adopt
the platform without change; several delegates urged objections, one of
them pertinently observing that there were also many other truths
enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. "Mr. President," said
he, "I believe in the ten commandments, but I do not want them in a
political platform." Mr. Giddings's amendment was voted down, and the
anti-slavery veteran, feeling himself wounded in his most cherished
philosophy, rose and walked out of the convention.

[Sidenote] Murat Halstead, "Conventions of 1860," p. 138.

Personal friends, grieved that he should feel offended, and doubly
sorry that the general harmony should be marred by even a single
dissent, followed Mr. Giddings, and sought to c