American politics (non-partisan) from the beginning to date

by Thomas V. Cooper; Hector T. Fenton

The Charleston Convention.

Such was the condition of the parties when the Democratic national convention met at Charleston, S. C., on the 23d of April, 1860, it being then the custom of the Democratic party, as it is of all majority parties, to call its convention first. It was composed of delegates from all the thirty-three States of the Union, the whole number of votes being 303. After the example of former Democratic conventions it adopted the two-third rule, and 202 votes were required to make nominations for President and Vice-President. Caleb Cushing, of Mass., presided. From the first a radical difference of opinion was exhibited among the members on the question of slavery in the Territories. Almost the entire Southern and a minority of the Northern portion believed in the Dred Scott decision, and held that slave property was as valid under the constitution as any other class of property. The Douglas delegates stood firmly by the theory of popular sovereignty, and avowed their indifference to the fact whether it would lead to the protection of slave property in the territories or not. On the second day a committee on resolutions consisting of one member from each State, selected by the State delegates, was named, and then a resolution was resolved unanimously “that this convention will not proceed to ballot for a candidate for the Presidency until the platform shall have been adopted.” On the fifth day the committee on resolutions presented majority and minority reports.

After a long discussion on the respective merits of the two reports, they were both, on motion of Mr. Bigler, of Pennsylvania, recommitted to the Committee on Resolutions, with a view, if possible, to promote harmony; but this proved to be impracticable. On the sixth day of the Convention (Saturday, April 28th,) at an evening session, Mr. Avery, of North Carolina, and Mr. Samuels, of Iowa, from the majority and minority of the committee, again made opposite and conflicting report on the question of slavery in the Territories. On this question the committee had divided from the beginning, the one portion embracing the fifteen members from the slaveholding States, with those from California and Oregon, and the other consisting of the members from all the free States east of the Rocky Mountains. On all other questions both reports substantially agreed.

The following is the report of the majority made on this subject by Mr. Avery, of North Carolina, the chairman of the committee: “Resolved, That the platform adopted by the Democratic party at Cincinnati be affirmed with the following explanatory resolutions: 1st. That the Government of a Territory, organized by an act of Congress, is provisional and temporary, and during its existence all citizens of the United States have an equal right to settle with their property in the Territory, without their rights, either of person or property, being destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial legislation. 2d. That it is the duty of the Federal Government, in all its departments, to protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and property in the Territories, and wherever else its constitutional authority extends. 3d. That when the settlers in a Territory having an adequate population form a State Constitution, the right of sovereignty commences, and being consummated by admission into the Union, they stand on an equal footing with the people of other States, and the State thus organized ought to be admitted into the Federal Union whether its constitution prohibits or recognizes the institution of slavery.”

The following is the report of the minority, made by Mr. Samuels, of Iowa. After reaffirming the Cincinnati platform by the first resolution, it proceeds: “Inasmuch as differences of opinion exist in the Democratic party, as to the nature and extent of the powers of a Territorial Legislature, and as to the powers and duties of Congress, under the Constitution of the United States, over the institution of slavery within the Territories, Resolved, That the Democratic party will abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States upon questions of constitutional law.”

After some preliminary remarks, Mr. Samuels moved the adoption of the minority report as a substitute for that of the majority. This gave rise to an earnest and excited debate. The difference between the parties was radical and irreconcilable. The South insisted that the Cincinnati platform, whose true construction in regard to slavery in the Territories had always been denied by a portion of the Democratic party, should be explained and settled by an express recognition of the principles decided by the Supreme Court. The North, on the other hand, refused to recognize this decision, and still maintained the power to be inherent in the people of a Territory to deal with the question of slavery according to their own discretion. The vote was then taken, and the minority report was substituted for that of the majority by a vote of one hundred and sixty-five to one hundred and thirty-eight. The delegates from the six New England States, as well as from New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, fourteen free States, cast their entire vote in favor of the minority report. New Jersey and Pennsylvania alone among the free States east of the Rocky Mountains, refused to vote as States, but their delegates voted as individuals.

The means employed to attain this end were skillfully devised by the minority of the Pennsylvania delegation in favor of nominating Mr. Douglas. The entire delegation had, strangely enough, placed this power in their hands, by selecting two of their number, Messrs. Cessna and Wright, to represent the whole on the two most important committees of the Convention—that of organization and that of resolutions. These gentlemen, by adroitness and parliamentary tact, succeeded in abrogating the former practice of casting the vote of the State as a unit. In this manner, whilst New York indorsed with her entire thirty-five votes the peculiar views of Mr. Douglas, notwithstanding there was in her delegation a majority of only five votes in their favor on the question of Territorial sovereignty, the effective strength of Pennsylvania recognizing the judgment of the Supreme Court, was reduced to three votes, this being the majority of fifteen on the one side over twelve on the other.

The question next in order before the Convention was upon the adoption of the second resolution of the minority of the committee, which had been substituted for the report of the majority. On this question Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Florida, and Mississippi refused to vote. Indeed, it soon appeared that on the question of the final adoption of this second resolution, which in fact amounted to nothing, it had scarcely any friends of either party in the Convention. The Douglas party, without explanation or addition, voted against it. On the other hand, the old Democracy could not vote for it without admitting that the Supreme Court had not already placed the right over slave property in the Territories on the same footing with all other property, and therefore they also voted against it. In consequence the resolution was negatived by a vote of only twenty-one in its favor to two hundred and thirty-eight. Had the seven Southern States just mentioned voted, the negatives would have amounted to two hundred and eighty-two, or more than thirteen to one. Thus both the majority and the minority resolutions on the Territorial question were rejected, and nothing remained before the Convention except the Cincinnati platform.

At this stage of the proceedings (April 30th), the States of Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas, having assigned their reasons for the act, withdrew in succession from the Convention. After these seven States had retired, the delegation from Virginia made an effort to restore harmony. Mr. Russell, their chairman, addressed the Convention and portrayed the alarming nature of the crisis. He expressed his fears that we were on the eve of a revolution, and if this Convention should prove a failure it would be the last National Convention of any party which would ever assemble in the United States. “Virginia,” said he, “stands in the midst of her sister States, in garments red with the blood of her children slain in the first outbreak of the ‘irrepressible conflict.’ But, sir, not when her children fell at midnight beneath the weapon of the assassin, was her heart penetrated with so profound a grief as that which will wring it when she is obliged to choose between a separate destiny with the South, and her common destiny with the entire Republic.”

Mr. Russell was not then prepared to answer, in behalf of his delegation, whether the events of the day (the defeat of the majority report, and the withdrawal of the seven States) were sufficient to justify her in taking the irrevocable step in question. In order, therefore, that they might have time to deliberate, and if they thought proper make an effort to restore harmony in the Convention, he expressed a desire that it might adjourn and afford them an opportunity for consultation. The Convention accordingly adjourned until the next day, Tuesday, May 1st; and immediately after its reassembling the delegation from Georgia, making the eighth State, also withdrew.