was over, owing to my
interest in Douglas. I wanted to watch affairs now, but also I wished to
help Douglas, if I could.

For the first time the Republicans entered the field. They adopted a
platform which incorporated the Declaration of Independence. It was
against popular sovereignty, lest the people vote in slavery, or be
tricked into doing so. It stood for Congressional control of slavery
extension, and implicit in this was the constitutional power of Congress
to do so. It had, with the Declaration of Independence, with the
invocation of God, and appeals to the Bible, gathered a working force in
the country. The press, the platform, had been busy to this end. Seward
with his higher law was a contributor. Chase, who was termed by Douglas
a debater, where Seward and Sumner were only essayists, was one of the
big figures in the new movement. Beecher and Greeley were spokesmen of
the new organization. The convention nominated Fremont who had explored
Oregon in 1842.

He was of the spirit of Douglas. He was an expansionist. He had gone
into California in 1845, and raised the American flag on a mountain
overlooking Monterey. He had helped later to conquer California. He had
for various audacious and disobedient acts been tried and
court-martialed, and dismissed from military service. President Polk had
approved the verdict, but remitted the penalty. Then he had resigned.
Now he was the object of the highest honor of an American convention. He
was made the spokesman for a platform which denounced the invasion of
Kansas by an armed force in the interests of slavery. He had gone into
California for the slavocracy which engineered the Mexican War, as New
England contended. Now he was at the head of the party waging war upon
that slavocracy. A strange people, these Americans!

Douglas had said that he did not want the office of President. Perhaps
that was an exhibition of political coyness, for he was in the lists
just the same! He had 33 votes on the first ballot, of which only 14
came from the South. President Pierce, who was running again, met a
wavering fortune. On the sixteenth ballot he had not a vote. Douglas had
121 votes; a certain Mr. Buchanan had 168. On the seventeenth ballot
this Mr. Buchanan was nominated. Who was this Mr. Buchanan?

He had been Secretary of State under Polk, had helped to secure the
Texan territory. So much for the appeal to Young America. He had been
minister to Great Britain. Therefore he