The balloting now proceeded. Mr. Douglas received 173½ votes; Mr. Guthrie 9; Mr. Breckinridge 6½; Mr. Bocock and Mr. Seymour each 1; and Mr. Dickerson and Mr. Wise each half a vote. On the next and last ballot Mr. Douglas received 181½ votes, eight of those in the minority having changed their votes in his favor.
To account for this number, it is proper to state that a few delegates from five of the eight States which had withdrawn still remained in the Convention. On the last ballot Mr. Douglas received all of their votes, to wit: 3 of the 15 votes of Virginia, 1 of the 10 votes of North Carolina, 1½ of the 3 votes of Arkansas, 3 of the 12 votes of Tennessee, 3 of the 12 votes of Kentucky, and 2½ of the 8 votes of Maryland, making in the aggregate 14 votes. To this number may be added the 9 votes of the new delegates from Alabama and the 6 from Louisiana, which had been admitted to the exclusion of the original delegates.
Mr. Douglas was accordingly declared to be the regular nominee of the Democratic party of the Union, upon the motion of Mr. Church, of New York, when, according to the report of the proceedings, “The whole body rose to its feet, hats were waved in the air, and many tossed aloft; shouts, screams, and yells, and every boisterous mode of expressing approbation and unanimity, were resorted to.”
Senator Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, was then unanimously nominated as the candidate for Vice-President; and the Convention adjourned sine die on the 23d June, the sixth and last day of its session. On the same day, but after the adjournment, Mr. Fitzpatrick declined the nomination, and it was immediately conferred on Mr. Herschel V. Johnson, of Georgia, by the Executive Committee. Thus ended the Douglas Convention.
But another Convention assembled at Baltimore on the same 23d June, styling itself the “National Democratic Convention.” It was composed chiefly of the delegates who had just withdrawn from the Douglas Convention, and the original delegates from Alabama and Louisiana. One of their first acts was to abrogate the two-third rule, as had been done by the Douglas Convention. Both acted under the same necessity, because the preservation of this rule would have prevented a nomination by either.
Mr. Cushing was elected and took the chair as President. In his opening address he said: “Gentlemen of the Convention, we assemble here, delegates to the National Democratic Convention, duly accredited thereto from more than twenty States of the Union, for the purpose of nominating candidates of the Democratic party for the offices of President and Vice-President of the United States, for the purpose of announcing the principles of the party, and for the purpose of continuing and re-establishing that party upon the firm foundations of the Constitution, the Union, and the co-equal rights of the several States.”
Mr. Avery, of North Carolina, who had reported the majority resolutions at Charleston, now reported the same from the committee of this body, and they “were adopted unanimously, amid great applause.”
The Convention then proceeded to select their candidates. Mr. Loring, on behalf of the delegates from Massachusetts, who with Mr. Butler had retired from the Douglas Convention, nominated John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, which Mr. Dent, representing the Pennsylvania delegation present, “most heartily seconded.” Mr. Ward, from the Alabama delegation, nominated R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia; Mr. Ewing, from that of Tennessee, nominated Mr. Dickinson, of New York; and Mr. Stevens, from Oregon, nominated General Joseph Lane. Eventually all these names were withdrawn except that of Mr. Breckinridge, and he received the nomination by a unanimous vote. The whole number of votes cast in his favor from twenty States was 103½.
General Lane was unanimously nominated as the candidate for Vice-President. Thus terminated the Breckinridge Convention.