Washington City, April 14, 1860.

My Dear Sir:—

I address you not only as a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Charleston Democratic National Convention, but as an old and valued friend. Whilst trusting that no member of that body will propose my name as a candidate for reëlection, yet, lest this might possibly prove to be the case, I require you, then, immediately to inform the Convention, as an act of justice to myself, that in no contingency can I ever again consent to become a candidate for the Presidency. My purpose to this effect was clearly indicated both in accepting the Cincinnati nomination, and afterwards in my inaugural address, and has since been repeated on various occasions, both public and private. In this determination neither my judgment nor my inclination has ever for a moment wavered. Deeply grateful to the great Democratic party of the country, on whose continued ascendancy, as I verily believe, the prosperity and perpetuity of our Confederate Republic depend, and praying Heaven that the Convention may select as their candidate an able, sound and conservative Democrat, in whose support we can all cordially unite.—I remain, very respectfully, your friend,

James Buchanan.

It is not at all difficult to see what Mr. Buchanan would have recommended if he had been asked to shape the action of his party. It is well known that he held it to be both right and expedient to recognize the claim of Southern emigrants into the Territories to an equal participation in the common domain of the Union, so far as to have their property in slaves admitted during the continuance of the Territorial condition. But he would have qualified this claim of right by the application of the principle of the Missouri Compromise; that is, by admitting it in Territories south of the line of 36° 30´, and by excluding it in Territories north of that line. This had been the former practice of Congress, and there could be no good reason now for not expecting the people of the North to make this concession to the South, excepting that Mr. Douglas had indoctrinated a portion of the Northern Democrats with his panacea of “popular sovereignty,” which was just as unacceptable to the South as the principles of the “Chicago platform.”

Accordingly, when the Democratic Convention assembled at Charleston, it soon found itself in an inextricable confusion of opinions as to the nature and extent of the powers of a Territorial legislature, and as to the authority and duties of Congress, under the Constitution of the United States, over slavery in the Territories. While it was in the power of this Democratic Convention to antagonize the Republican party with a platform, simple, reasonable and just to all sections, on which the votes of all sections could be asked, it became divided into a Northern and a Southern faction, and wholly lost the opportunity of appealing to a national spirit of harmony and good-will. The Northern faction, inspired by Mr. Douglas, insisted on the adoption of his principle of “popular sovereignty,” which ignored the Southern claim of a property right protected by the Constitution. The Southern faction insisted on the recognition of that right, in a way that ignored the governing authority of both Congress and Territorial legislature.

Without some compromise, there could be no common platform and no common candidate. After many ineffectual attempts to agree upon a platform, and after some secessions of Southern delegates, fifty ballotings for a candidate were carried on until the 3d of May. The highest number of votes received at any time by Mr. Douglas was 152½, 202 being necessary to a nomination. The other votes were scattered among different Northern and Southern men. The convention then adjourned, to meet at Baltimore on the 18th of June, with a recommendation that the party in the several States fill up all vacancies in their respective delegations.[[60]] The result was that when assembled at Baltimore, a dispute about the delegations entitled to seats ended in a disruption of the convention into two bodies, the one distinctly Northern, the other distinctly Southern. The Northern Democratic Convention nominated Mr. Douglas as its candidate, of course upon his platform of “popular sovereignty.” The Southern Democratic Convention nominated Mr. Breckinridge as its candidate, upon a platform of coequal rights of all the States in all the Territories. Thus perished every hope of uniting the Democratic party upon a political basis that would antagonize the Republican platform in a sensible manner, and afford a reasonable chance of preventing a sectional political triumph of the North over the South, or of the free over the slave States.[[61]]

Mr. Buchanan, after the two factions of the Democratic party had made their nominations, pursued the course which became him as an outgoing President. As a citizen, he had to choose between Mr. Breckinridge and Mr. Douglas. The former represented more nearly the political principles of Mr. Buchanan than any other candidate whom he could support, and it was to Mr. Breckinridge that he gave all the support which it was proper for him to give to any one. But his views of the whole situation are apparent in the following letter, written in July, 1860:—

[MR. BUCHANAN TO C. COMSTOCK.]

Washington, July 5, 1860.