Bitter thoughts filled the home-going delegates. Douglas' Northwestern friends talked rancorously of the South; while, in their bitterness, Yancey and his followers exulted in the defeat of the Illinois Senator. "Men will be cutting one another's throats in a little while," said Alexander H. Stephens. "In less than twelve months we shall be in war, and that the bloodiest in history. Men seem to be utterly blinded to the future."[250]
"Do you not think matters may be adjusted at Baltimore?" asked R.M. Johnston. "Not the slightest chance of it," was the reply. "The party is split forever. Douglas will not retire from the stand he has taken. The only hope was at Charleston. If the party would be satisfied with the Cincinnati platform and would cordially nominate Douglas, we should carry the election; but I repeat to you that is impossible."[251]
Between the conventions the controversy moved to the floor of the United States Senate. "We claim protection for slavery in the territories," said Jefferson Davis, "first, because it is our right; secondly, because it is the duty of the general government."[252] In replying to Davis several days later, Douglas said: "My name never would have been presented at Charleston except for the attempt to proscribe me as a heretic, too unsound to be the chairman of a committee in this body, where I have held a seat for so many years without a suspicion resting on my political fidelity. I was forced to allow my name to go there in self-defence; and I will now say that had any gentleman, friend or foe, received a majority of that convention over me the lightning would have carried a message withdrawing my name."[253]
A few days afterward Davis referred to the matter again. "I have a declining respect for platforms," he said. "I would sooner have an honest man on any sort of a rickety platform you could construct than to have a man I did not trust on the best platform which could be made." This stung Douglas. "If the platform is not a matter of much consequence," he demanded, "why press that question to the disruption of the party? Why did you not tell us in the beginning of this debate that the whole fight was against the man and not upon the platform?"[254]
These personalities served to deepen the exasperation of the sections. The real strain was to come, and there was great need that cool heads and impersonal argument should prevail over misrepresentation and passion. But the coming event threw its shadow before it.
CHAPTER XXI
SEWARD DEFEATED AT CHICAGO
1860
The Republican national convention met at Chicago on May 16. It was the prototype of the modern convention. In 1856, an ordinary hall in Philadelphia, with a seating capacity of two thousand, sufficed to accommodate delegates and spectators, but in 1860 the large building, called a "wigwam," specially erected for the occasion and capable of holding ten thousand, could not receive one-half the people seeking admission, while marching clubs, bands of music, and spacious headquarters for state delegations, marked the new order of things. As usual in later years, New York made an imposing demonstration. The friends of Seward took an entire hotel, and an organised, well-drilled body of men from New York City, under the lead of Tom Hyer, a noted pugilist, headed by a gaily uniformed band, paraded the streets amidst admiring crowds. For the first time, too, office-seekers were present in force at a Republican convention; and, to show their devotion, they packed hotel corridors and the convention hall itself with bodies of men who vociferously cheered every mention of their candidate's name. Such tactics are well understood and expected nowadays, but in 1860 they were unique.
The convention, consisting of 466 delegates, represented one southern, five border, and eighteen free States. "As long as conventions shall be held," wrote Horace Greeley, "I believe no abler, wiser, more unselfish body of delegates will ever be assembled than that which met at Chicago."[255] Governor Morgan, as chairman of the Republican national committee, called the convention to order, presenting David Wilmot, author of the famous proviso, for temporary chairman. George Ashmun of Massachusetts, the favourite friend of Webster, became permanent president. The platform, adopted by a unanimous vote on the second day, denounced the Harper's Ferry invasion "as among the gravest of crimes;" declared the doctrine of popular sovereignty "a deception and fraud;" condemned the attempt of President Buchanan to force the Lecompton Constitution upon Kansas; denied "the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of an individual to give legal existence to slavery in any territory;" demanded a liberal homestead law; and favoured a tariff "to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country." The significant silence as to personal liberty bills, the Dred Scott decision, the fugitive slave law, and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, evidenced the handiwork of practical men.