August 29, the Softs met in convention. The Barnburners, who had
vainly extended the olive branch to the Hards, now faced an array of
anti-slavery delegates that would not condone the Kansas outrages.
They would disapprove prohibition, commend Marcy's admirable foreign
policy, and praise the President's management of the exchequer; but
they would not countenance border ruffianism, encourage slavery
propagandists in Kansas, or submit to the extension of slavery in the
free territories. It was a stormy convention. For three days the
contest raged; but when final action was taken, although the platform
did not in terms censure Pierce's administration, it condemned the
Kansas outrages which the President had approved by the removal of
Governor Reeder, and disapproved the extension of slavery into free
territories. Among the candidates nominated were Samuel J. Tilden for
attorney-general, and Samuel L. Selden of Rochester for judge of the
Court of Appeals. Selden, who had been a district judge since 1847,
was also nominated by the Hards.

The Kansas disclosures had the effect of drawing into closer communion
the various shades of anti-slavery opinion in New York. Early in the
summer, the question was earnestly considered of enlisting all men
opposed to the aggressions of slavery under the banner of the
Republican party, a political organisation formed, as has been stated,
at Jackson, Michigan, on July 6, 1854. Horace Greeley had suggested
the name "Republican" as an unobjectionable one for the new party;
and, within a week after its adoption at Jackson, it became the name
of the Free-soilers who marshalled in Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois,
Vermont, and Massachusetts. The anti-Nebraska convention of New York,
which reassembled in Auburn on the 27th of September, 1854, also
adopted the name, calling its executive committee "the Republican
state committee." It was not a new name in the Empire State. Voters in
middle life had all been Republicans in their early years; and long
after the formation of the National Republicans in 1828, and of the
Whig party in 1834, the designation had been used with approval by the
Regency. In 1846, Silas Wright spoke of belonging to "the Republican
party;" and, in 1848, Horace Greeley suggested "Taylor Republicans" as
a substitute for Whigs. But for twenty years the name had practically
fallen into disuse, and old questions associated with it had died out
of popular memory.

After full conferences