Ninth, That we brand the recent re-opening of the African Slave-trade under the cover of our National flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, as a crime against humanity and a burning shame to our Country and Age; and we call upon Congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final suppression of that execrable traffic.
Tenth, That in the recent vetoes, by their Federal Governors, of the acts of the Legislatures of Kansas and Nebraska, prohibiting Slavery in those Territories, we find a practical illustration of the boasted Democratic principle of Non-Intervention and Popular Sovereignty embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and a demonstration of the deception and fraud involved therein.
Eleventh, That Kansas should, of right, be immediately admitted as a State, under the Constitution recently formed and adopted by the House of Representatives.
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The National platform of the "Constitutional Union" Party, was adopted, unanimously, in these words:
"Whereas, experience has demonstrated that platforms adopted by the partisan Conventions of the Country have had the effect to mislead and deceive the People, and at the same time to widen the political divisions of the Country, by the creation and encouragement of geographical and Sectional parties; therefore,
"Resolved, That it is both the part of patriotism and of duty to recognize no political principle other than the Constitution of the Country, the Union of the States, and the Enforcement of the Laws, and that, as representatives of the Constitutional Union men of the Country, in National Convention assembled, we hereby pledge ourselves to maintain, protect, and defend, separately and unitedly, these great principles of public liberty and national safety, against all enemies, at home and abroad; believing that thereby peace may once more be restored to the Country, the rights of the people and of the States re-established, and the Government again placed in that condition of justice, fraternity, and equality which, under the example and Constitution of our fathers, has solemnly bound every citizen of the United States to maintain a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
Thus, by the last of June, 1860, the four National Parties with their platforms and candidates were all in the political field prepared for the onset.
Briefly, the attitude of the standard-bearers representing the platform-principles of their several Parties, was this:
Lincoln, representing the Republicans, held that Slavery is a wrong, to be tolerated in the States where it exists, but which must be excluded from the Territories, which are all normally Free and must be kept Free by Congressional legislation, if necessary; and that neither Congress, nor the Territorial Legislature, nor any individual, has power to give to it legal existence in such Territories.