nsent; they carried an amendment declaring merely
that they would abide by any decision of the Supreme Court as to
slavery. Thereupon the delegates, not indeed of the whole South but of
all the cotton-growing States except Georgia, withdrew from the
Convention. The remaining delegates were, under the rules of the
Convention, too few to select a candidate for the Presidency, and the
Convention adjourned, to re-assemble at Baltimore in June. Eventually,
after attempts at reunion and further dissensions, two separate
Democratic Conventions at Baltimore, a Northern and a Southern,
nominated, as their respective candidates, Stephen Douglas, the obvious
choice with whom, if the Southerners had cared to temporise further, a
united Democratic party could have swept the polls, and John C.
Breckinridge of Kentucky, a gentleman not otherwise known than as the
standard bearer on this great occasion of the undisguised and
unmitigated claims of the slave owners.

Thus it was that the American Democratic party forfeited power for
twenty-four years, divided between the consistent maintenance of a
paradox and the adroit maintenance of inconsistency. Another party in
this election demands a moment's notice. A Convention of delegates,
claiming to represent the old Whigs, met also at Baltimore and declared
merely that it stood for "the Constitution of the country, the union of
the States, and the enforcement of the laws." They nominated for the
Presidency John Bell of Tennessee, and for the Vice-Presidency Edward
Everett. This latter gentleman was afterwards chosen as the orator of
the day at the ceremony on the battlefield of Gettysburg when Lincoln's
most famous speech was spoken. He was a travelled man and a scholar;
he was Secretary of State for a little while under Fillmore, and dealt
honestly and firmly with the then troublous question of Cuba. His
orations deserve to be looked at, for they are favourable examples of
the eloquence which American taste applauded, and as such they help to
show how original Lincoln was in the simpler beauty of his own simpler
diction. In justice to the Whigs, let it be noted that they declared
for the maintenance of the Union, committing themselves with decision
on the question of the morrow; but it was a singular platform that
resolutely and totally ignored the only issue of the day. Few
politicians can really afford to despise either this conspicuously
foolish attempt to overcome a difficul