Massachusetts delegation. All of these | States of the Union, for the purpose of had voted with the South and against nominating candidates of the Democratic Douglas. The balloting now proceeded. Mr. Douglas received 1734 votes; Mr. Guthrie 9; Mr. Breckinridge 63; 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 181 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 To account for this number, it is proper to state that a few delegates from five of the eight States which had withdrawn still remained in the Convention.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, 14 of the 3 votes of Arkansas, 3 of the 12 votes of Tennessee, 3 of the 12 votes of Kentucky, and 24 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 It was composed chiefly of the delegates who had just withdrawn from the Douglas Convention, and the original delegates from Alabama and Louisiana.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 party for the offices of President and VicePresident 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 coequal 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 1034. General Lane was unanimously nominated as the candidate for Vice-President. Thus terminated the Breckinridge Convention. The Chicago Republican Convention. The Republicans had named May 16th, 1860, as the date and Chicago as the place for holding their second National Convention. They had been greatly encouraged by the vote for Fremont and Dayton, and, what had now become apparent as an irreconcilable division of the Democracy, encouraged them in the belief that they could elect their candidates. Those of the great West were especially enthusiastic, and had contributed freely to the erection of an immense "Wigwam," capable of holding ten thousand people, at Chicago. All the Northern States were fully represented, and there were besides partial delegations from Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri and Virginia, with occasional delegates from other Slave States, there being none, however, from the Gulf States. David Wilmot, of Penna., author of the Wilmot proviso, was made tempo rary chairman, and George Ashman, of Mass., permanent President. No differences were excited by the report of the committee on platform, and the proceedings The principles involved in the controversy are given at length in the Book of Platforms, and were briefly these: The Republican party asserted that slavery should not be extended to the territories; that it could exist only by virtue of local and positive law; that freedom was national; that slavery was morally wrong, and the nation should at least anticipate its gradual extinction. The Douglas wing of the Democratic party adhered to the doctrine of popular sovereignty, and claimed that in its exercise in the territories they were indifferent whether slavery was voted up or down. The Breckinridge wing of the Democratic party asserted both the moral and legal right to hold slaves, and to carry them to the territories, and that no power save the national constitution could prohibit or interfere with it outside of State lines. The Americans supporting Bell, adhered to their peculiar doctrines touching emigration and naturalization, but had abandoned, in most of the throughout were characterized by great | vote being 1,866,452; electoral vote, 180. harmony, though there was a somewhat Douglas was next in the popular estimate, sharp contest for the Presidential nomina- receiving 1,375,157 votes, with but 12 election. The prominent candidates were Wm. tors. Breckinridge had 847,953 votes, with H. Seward, of New York; Abraham Lin- 76 electors; Bell, with 570,631 votes, had coln, of Illinois; Salmon P. Chase, of 39 electors. Ohio; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, and Edward Bates, of Missouri. There were three ballots, Mr. Lincoln receiving in the last 354 out of 446 votes. Mr. Seward led the vote at the beginning, but he was strongly opposed by gentlemen in his own State as prominent as Horace Greeley and Thurlow Weed, and his nomination was thought to be inexpedient. Lincoln's successful debate with Douglas was still .fresh in the minds of the delegates, and every addition to his vote so heightened the enthusiasm that the convention was finally carried “off its feet,” the delegations rapidly changing on the last ballot. Lincoln had been a known candidate but a month or two before, while Seward's name had been everywhere canvassed, and where opposed in the Eastern and Middle States, it was mainly because of the belief that his views on slavery were too radical. He was more strongly favored by the Abolition branch of the party than any other candididate. When the news of his success was first conveyed to Mr. Lincoln he was sit-States, the secrecy and oaths of the Knowing in the office of the State Journal, at Springfield, which was connected by a telegraph wire with the Wigwam. On the close of the third ballot a despatch was handed Mr. Lincoln. He read it in silence, Secession, up to this time, had not been and then announcing the result said: regarded as treasonable in all sections and "There is a little woman down at our at all times. As shown in many previous house would like to hear this-I'll go down pages, it had been threatened by the Hartand tell her," and he started amid the ford Convention; certainly by some of the shouts of personal admirers. Hannibal people of New England who opposed the Hamlin, of Maine, was nominated for Vice-war of 1812. Some of the more extreme President with much unanimity, and the Chicago Convention closed its work in a single day. The American Convention. Nothing order. They were evasive and non-committal on the slavery question. Preparing for Secession. Abolitionists had favored a division of the sections. The South, particularly the Gulf States, had encouraged a secret organization, known as the "Order of the Lone Star," previous to and at the time of the A "Constitutional Union," really an annexation of Texas. One of its objects American Convention, had met at Balti-was to acquire Cuba, so as to extend slave more on the 9th of May. Twenty States territory. The Gulf States needed more were represented, and John Bell, of Ten- slaves, and though the law made particinessee, and Edward Everett, of Massachu-pancy in the slave trade piracy, many carsetts, were named for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency. Their friends, though known to be less in number than either those of Douglas, Lincoln or Breckinridge, yet made a vigorous canvass in the hope that the election would be thrown into the House, and that there a compromise in the vote by States would naturally turn toward their candidates. The result of the great contest is elsewhere given in our Tabulated History of Politics. THE PRINCIPLES INVOLVED. Lincoln received large majorities in nearly all of the free States, his popular goes had been landed in parts of the Gulf without protest or prosecution, just prior to the election of 1860. Calhoun had threatened, thirty years before, nullification, and before that again, secession in the event of the passage of the Public Land Bill. Jefferson and Madison had indicated that doctrine of State Rights on which secession was based in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798, facts which were daily discussed by the people of the South during this most exciting of all Presidential campaigns. The leaders in the South had anticipated defeat at the election, and many of them made early preparations for the withdrawal of their States from the Union. Some of the more extreme anti-slavery men of the North, noting these preparations, for a time favored a plan of letting the South go in peace. South Carolina was the first to adopt a secession ordinance, and before it did so, Horace Greeley said in the New York Tribune: "If the Declaration of Independence justified the secession from the British Empire of three millions of colonists in 1776, we can not see why it would not justify the secession of five millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." These views, however, soon fell into disfavor throughout the North, and the period of indecision on either side ceased when Fort Sumter was fired upon. The Gulf States openly made their preparations as soon as the result of the Presidential election was known, as a rule pursuant to a previous understanding. The following, condensed from Hon. Edward McPherson's" Political History of the United States of America during the Great Rebellion," is a orrect statement of the movements which followed, in the several Southern States: SOUTH CAROLINA. by the good people of South Carolina," of the Ordinance of May 23d, 1788, and "the dissolution of the union between the State of South Carolina and other States under the name of the United States of America," and proclaiming to the world "that the State of South Carolina is, as she has a right to be, a separate, sovereign, free and independent State, and, as such, has a right to levy war, conclude peace, negotiate treaties, leagues, or covenants, and to do all acts whatsoever that rightfully appertain to a free and independent State. "Done in the eighty-fifth year of the Sovereignty and independence of South Carolina." Jan. 3d, 1861. South Carolina Com- . missioners left Washington. 4th. Convention appointed T. J. With ers, L. M. Keitt, W. W. Boyce, Jas. Chestnut, Jr., R. B. Rhett, Jr., R. W. Barnwell, and C. G. Memminger, delegates to Southern Congress. 5th. Convention adjourned, subject to the call of the Governor. 14th. Legislature declared that any attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter would be considered an open act of hostility and a declaration of war. Approved the Governor's action in firing on the Star of the West. Accepted the services of the Catawba Indians. 27th. Received Judge Robertson, Commissioner from Virginia, but rejected the proposition for a conference and co-oper March 26th. Convention met in Charles November 5th, 1860. Legislature met to choose Presidential electors, who voted for Breckinridge and Lane for President and Vice President. Gov. William H. Gist recommended in his message that inative action. the event of Abraham Lincoln's election to the Presidency, a convention of the people of the State be immediately called to consider and determine for themselves the mode and measure of redress. He expressed the opinion that the only alternative left is the "secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union." 7th. United States officials resigned at Charleston. 10th. U. S. Senators James H. Hammond and James Chestnut, Jr., resigned their seats in the Senate. Convention called to meet Dec. 17th. Delegates to be elected Dec. 6th. 13th. Collection of debts due to citizens of non-slaveholding States stayed. Francis W. Pickens elected Governor. 17th. Ordinance of Secession adopted unanimously. 21st. Commissioners appointed (Barnwell, Adams, and Orr) to proceed to Washington to treat for the possession of U. S. Government property within the limits of South Carolina. Commissioners appointed to the other slaveholding States. Southern Congress proposed. 24th. Representatives in Congress withdrew. Gov. Pickens issued a proclamation "announcing the repeal, Dec. 20th, 1860, ton. April 3d. Ratified "Confederate" Constitution-yeas 114, nays 16. 8th. Transferred forts, etc., to "Confederate" government. GEORGIA. November 8th, 1860. Legislature met pursuant to previous arrangement. 18th. Convention called. Legislature appropriated $1,000,000 to arm the State. Dec. 3d. Resolutions adopted in the Legislature proposing a conference of the Southern States at Atlanta, Feb. 20th. January 17th, 1861. Convention met. Received Commissioners from South Carolina and Alabama 18th. Resolutions declaring it the right and duty of Georgia to secede, adoptedyeas 165, nays 130. 19th. Ordinance of Secession passedyeas 208, nays 89. 21st. Senators and Representatives in Congress withdrew. 24th. Elected Delegates to Southern Congress at Montgomery, Alabama. 28th. Elected Commissioners to other Slaveholding States. 29th. Adopted an address" to the South and the world." March 7th. Convention reassembled. 16th. Ratified the "Confederate" Constitution-yeas 96, nays 5. 20th. Ordinance passed authorizing the "Confederate" government to occupy, use and possess the forts, navy yards, arsenals, and custom houses within the limits of said State. April 26th. Governor Brown issued a proclamation ordering the repudiation by the citizens of Georgia of all debts due Northern men. MISSISSIPPI. between Federal troops and those in the employ of Florida, the act of holding office under the Federal government shall be declared treason, and the person convicted shall suffer death. Transferred control of government property captured, to the "Confederate" government. LOUISIANA. December 10th, 1860. Legislature met. 11th. Convention called for Jan. 23d. Military bill passed. 12th. Commissioners from Mississippi received and heard. Governor instructed to November 26th, 1860. Legislature met communicate with Governors of other Nov. 26th, and adjourned Nov. 30th. Elec-southern States. tion for Convention fixed for Dec. 20th. Jan 23d, 1861. Convention met and Convention to meet Jan 7th. Convention organized. Received and heard Commisbills and secession resolutions passed unanimously. Commissioners appointed to other Slaveholding States to secure their cooperation in effecting measures for their common defence and safety." 66 sioners from South Carolina and Alabama. 25th. Ordinance of Secession passed→→ yeas 113, nays 17. Convention refused to submit the ordinance to the people by a vote of 84 to 45. This was subsequently Jan. 7th, 1861. Convention assembled. reconsidered, and the ordinance was sub9th. Ordinance of Secession passed-mitted. The vote upon it as declared was yeas 84, nays 15. 20,448 in favor, and 17,296 against. In the ordinance the people of the State of Mississippi express their consent to form a federal union with such of the States as have seceded or may secede from the Union of the United States of America, upon the basis of the present Constitution of the United States, except such parts thereof as embrace other portions than such seceding States. 10th. Commissioners from other States received. Resolutions adopted, recognizing South Carolina as sovereign and independent. Jan. 12th. Representatives in Congress withdrew. 19th. The committee on the Confederacy in the Legislature reported resolutions to provide for a Southern Confederacy, and to establish a provisional government for seceding States and States hereafter seceding. 21st. Senators in Congress withdrew. March 30th. Ratified "Confederate" Constitution-yeas 78, nays 7. FLORIDA. Feb. 5th. Senators withdrew from Congress, also the Representatives, except John E. Bouligny. State flag adopted. Pilots at the Balize prohibited from bringing over the bar any United States vessels of war. March 7th. Ordinance adopted in secret session transferring to "Confederate" States government $536,000, being the amount of bullion in the U. S. mint and customs seized by the State. 16th. An ordinance voted down, submitting the "Confederate" Constitution to the people yeas 26, nays 74. 21st. Ratified the "Confederate" Constitution-yeas 101 aays 7. Governor authorized to transfe the arms and property captured fror the United States to the "Confederate" Government. 27th. Convention adjourned sine die. ALABAMA. January 7th, 1861. Convention met. 8th. Received and heard the Commissioner from South Carolina. 11th. Ordinance of Secession passed in secret session-yeas 61, nays 39. ProposiNovember 26th, 1860. Legislature met. tion to submit ordinance to the people lost Governor M. S. Perry recommended imme--yeas 47, nays 53. diate secession. Dec. 1st. Convention bill passed. 14th. Legislature met pursuant to previous action. 19th. Delegates elected to the Southern 7th. Commissioners from South Carolina Congress. and Alabama received and heard. 21st. Representatives and Senators in 10th. Ordinance of Secession passed-Congress withdrew. yeas 62, nays 7. 18th. Delegates appointed to Southern Congress at Montgomery. 21st. Senators and Representatives in Congress withdrew. 26th. Commissioners appointed to treat with the United States Government relative to the United States forts, arsenals, etc., within the State. The Convention requested the people of Feb. 14th. Act passed by the Legisla- the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, ture declaring that after any actual collision | North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, January 16th, 1861. Legislature passed Convention bill. Vote of the people on the Convention was 27,412 for it, and 15,826 against it. February 18th. Delegates elected. 18th. The Ordinance of Secession defeated-yeas 35, nays 39. The convention effected a compromise by agreeing to submit the question of co-operation or secession to the people on the 1st Monday in August. May 6th. Passed Secession Ordinanceyeas 69, nays 1. Authorized her delegates to the Provisional Congress, to transfer the arsenal at Little Rock and hospital at Napoleon to the " Confederate " Government. TEXAS. January 21st, 1861. Legislature met. 28th. People's State Convention met. 29th. Legislature passed a resolution declaring that the Federal Government has no power to coerce a Sovereign State after she has pronounced her separation from the Federal Union. February 1st. Ordinance of Secession passed in Convention-yeas 166, nays 7. Military bill passed. 7th. Ordinance passed, forming the foundation of a Southern Confederacy. Delegates to the Southern Congress elected. Also an act passed submitting the Ordinance of Secession to a vote of the people. 23d. Secession Ordinance voted on by the people; adopted by a vote of 34,794 in favor, and 11,235 against it. March 4th. Convention declared the State out of the Union. Gov. Houston issued a proclamation to that effect. 16th. Convention by a vote of 127 to 4 deposed Gov. Houston, declaring his seat vacant. Gov. Houston issued a proclamation to the people protesting against this action of the Convention. 20th. Legislature confirmed the action of the Convention in deposing Gov. Houston by a vote of 53 to 11. Transferred forts, etc., to "Confederate" Government. 23d. Ratified the "Confederate" Constitution-yeas 68, nays 2. NORTH CAROLINA. November 20th, 1860. Legislature met. Gov. Ellis recommended that the Legislature invite a conference of the Southern States, or failing in that, send one or more delegates to the neighboring States so as to secure concert of action. He recommended a thorough reorganization of the militia, and the enrollment of all persons between 18 and 45 years, and the organization of a corps of ten thousand men; also, a Convention, to assemble immediately after the proposed consultation with other Southern States shall have terminated. December 9th, Joint Committee on Federal Relations agreed to report a Convention Bill. 17th. Bill appropriating $300,000 to arm the State, debated. 18th. Senate passed above bill-yeas, 41, nays, 3. 20th. Commissioners from Alabama and Mississippi received and heard-the latter, J. Thompson, by letter. 22d. Senate bill to arm the State failed to pass the House. 22d. Adjourned till January 7th. January 8th, 1861. Senate Bill arming the State passed the House, yeas, 73, nays, 26. 30th. Passed Convention Bill-election to take place February 28th. No Secession Ordinance to be valid without being ratified by a majority of the qualified voters of the State. 31st. Elected Thos. L. Clingman United States Senator, Commissioners from February 13th. 20th. Mr. Hoke elected Adjutant General of the State. Military Bill passed. 28th. Election of Delegates to Convention took place. 28th. The vote for a Convention was 46,671; against 47,333-majority against a Convention 661. May 1st. Extra session of the Legislature met at the call of Gov. Ellis. The same day they passed a Convention Bill, ordering the election of delegates on the 15th. 2d. Legislature adjourned. 13th. Election of delegates to the Convention took place. 20th. Convention met at Raleigh. 21st. Ordinance of Secession passed; also the "Confederate" Constitution ratified. June 5th. Ordinance passed, ceded the arsenal at Fayetteville, and transferred magazines, etc., to the "Confederate" Government. |