were able to wipe out the double
score by defeating both Pierce and Douglas. Most of the Southern
delegates seem to have been guided by the mere thought of present
utility; they voted to renominate Pierce because of his subservient
Kansas policy, forgetting that Douglas had not only begun it, but was
their strongest ally to continue it. When after a day of fruitless
balloting they changed their votes to Douglas, Buchanan, the so-called
"old fogy," just returned from the English mission, and therefore not
handicapped by personal jealousies and heart-burnings, had secured the
firm adhesion of a decided majority mainly from the North.[3]

The "two-thirds rule" was not yet fulfilled, but at this juncture the
friends of Pierce and Douglas yielded to the inevitable, and withdrew
their favorites in the interest of "harmony." On the seventeenth
ballot, therefore, and the fifth day of the convention, James
Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, became the unanimous nominee of the
Democratic party for President, and John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky,
for Vice-President.

The famous "Cincinnati platform" holds a conspicuous place in party
literature for length, for vigor of language, for variety of topics,
for boldness of declaration; and yet, strange to say, its chief merit
and utility lay in the skillful concealment of its central thought and
purpose. About one-fourth of its great length is devoted to what to
the eye looks like a somewhat elaborate exposition of the doctrines of
the party on the slavery question. Eliminate the verbiage and there
only remains an indorsement of the "principles contained in the
organic laws establishing the Territory of Kansas and Nebraska"
(non-interference by Congress with slavery in State and Territory, or
in the District of Columbia); and the practical application of "the
principles" is thus further defined: "Resolved, That we recognize the
right of the people of all the Territories, including Kansas and
Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly expressed will of a
majority of actual residents, and whenever the number of their
inhabitants justifies it, to form a constitution with or without
domestic slavery, and be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect
equality with the other States."

We have already seen how deliberately the spirit and letter of "the
principle" was violated by the Democratic National Administration of
President Pierce, and by nearly all the Democratic Senators and
Repr