was a bolder thinker. Hunter, a more persistent student, was in the minds of many, an abler man; and a much greater favorite with Northern Democrats. He was, however, sluggish and unattractive. Mason the heir of several Virginia reputations, was pompous and oracular to a degree amounting to burlesque. Toombs was bellicose and unbalanced, and so passionate in what he conceived to be right that he was uncontrollable; Iverson was inflammable and unequal; C. C. Clay was self-opinionated, narrow-minded and vindictive; A. G. Brown exactly the reverse, was open-minded, a clear thinker, full of popular sympathies, and consequently dangerous to meddle with; Fitzpatrick was easy-going and respectable; Slidell's leading talent was astuteness; and that of Benjamin a wicked gift of speech, which, like flowering branches before a masked battery, hid treachery and remorseless deceit; Wigfall was violent, sometimes descending to vulgarity, and sometimes touching the heart with sentiment. Davis was singularly fitted to control if not to combine these conflicting elements. He was free from taint as a peculator, and had a self-contained ambition which, amounting to callousness regarding the actions of men on his own side, was mistaken for calmness; and assumed a solemnity of reply to the opposition, which carried in its manner the intimation that when he spoke nothing further need be said. He was known as cold, proud, unforgiving; qualities which in conjunction with great talents and knowledge, while they repelled the free and easy politicians, indicated him as a leader who need not be all things to all men, but who would check the familiarity of those nearest to him, and whose ostensible impartiality would command the respect of the masses. Notoriously of a despotic cast of mind, he was little given to the melting mood of even remotely extending forgiveness, or acknowledging the possibility of a cause for soliciting it.

When he arose in the Chamber, he invariably commanded attention. He was not hazardous in debate; consequently when he spoke the conclusion was that he knew what he spoke about. Of easy manner, there was a precision in his phraseology which gave a vigor and force to his speeches that accorded well with the military character of the speaker. His language, as well as his manner, was orderly rather than ornate.

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CHAPTER X.

THE Presidential Conventions of 1860 Their Nominations and PlatformsBell, Everett, and the Constitution and the Laws Lincoln, Hamlin, and Intervention Douglas, H. V. Johnson, and Non-Intervention - Breckin ridge, Lane, and Slave Protection The Disruption in the Democratic Convention-Two Seceders' Conventions - The First Step toward Practical Disunion-Delay of Breckinridge to accept the Richmond NominationCalls for his Letter - Its Character - Causes of the Democratic Disruptions - The Plots of Disunionists under Yancey, and Buchanan's Hatred of Douglas.

A NUMBER of delegates from twenty States, representing what they called the "Constitutional Union Party," met at Baltimore, on the 9th of May, 1860, and nominated John Bell of Tennessee, for the Presidency, and Edward Everett of Massachusetts, for the Vice-Presidency. This convention put forth no platform of party principles, believing experience had demonstrated that such tend to mislead and deceive the people. Their faith was set forth in a resolution recognizing no political principle other than the Constitution of the country, the union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws.

Abraham Lincoln of Illinois was nominated May 18, 1860, for the Presidency, and Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, for the Vice-Presidency, by the convention which met at Chicago, on the 15th instant. Mr. Lincoln was put in nomination by the Republican party, and he presented in his life and opinions the precise aim and object for which that party had been formed. He was a native of a slaveholding State, and, while he had been opposed to slavery, he had regarded it as a local institution, the creature of local laws,

with which the national Government of the United States had nothing whatever to do. But in common with all observant public men, he had watched, with distrust and apprehension, the advance of slavery as an element of political power towards ascendancy in the Government of the nation, and had cordially co-operated with those who thought it absolutely necessary for the future well-being of the country that this tendency should be checked. He had, therefore, opposed very strenuously the extension of slavery into the territories, and had asserted the right and duty of Congress to exclude it by positive legislation therefrom. The Chicago Convention, which nominated Mr. Lincoln, adopted a platform of which this was the cardinal feature; but it also took care to remove the apprehensions of the South that the party proposed to interfere with slavery in the States whose laws gave it support and protection. It expressly disavowed all authority and all wish for such interference, and declared its purpose to protect Southern States in the free enjoyment of all their constitutional rights.*

The Democratic Convention which re-assembled at Baltimore one month later, presented a continuation of the scenes which took place at Charleston, and exhibited still further the machinations of the Southern Democrats to treat the Northern Democrats as Sepoys. Delegates from Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri and Massachusetts, as well as the President of the Convention, Hon. Caleb Cushing, withdrew. Governor Tod of Ohio, was appointed in his place, and the Convention nominated Stephen A. Douglas for the Presi dency, and Benjamin Fitzpatrick of Alabama, for the VicePresidency. The latter, owing to the Southern pressure on him, declined the nomination, and Herschell V. Johnson, of Georgia, was put in his place by the National Committee. History of the Administration of Abraham Lincoln," by H. J.Raymond.

The platform of the National Democratic Convention re-affirmed the principles declared by the Cincinnati Convention of 1856, which, as regarded the great questions of the day, were based on Douglas' doctrine of non-intervention. It added a resolution in effect that the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States on the constitutional restrictions, whatever they may be, on Territorial Legislatures, should be respected by all good citizens and enforced by the Government.

The seceders from the regular Democratic Convention. met at the Maryland Institute, Baltimore, on the 28th of June. They increased their numbers by admitting persons not clected delegates, but who happened to be in the city as visitors; to give the meeting an air of regularity, they chose Mr. Cushing as their presiding officer, and after going through certain formalities, nominated John C. Breckinridge for the Presidency, and Joseph Lane for the VicePresidency. The platform of this seceding faction also reaffirmed the Cincinnati resolutions, and added others declaring the rights of slavery in the Territories as paramount to either congressional or territorial legislation, and also that it was the duty of the Federal Government to protect slavery in the Territories.

The candidates, then, stood before the people thus:

Lincoln was for the direct intervention of Congress to prohibit slavery in the Territories.

Douglas was for the non-intervention of Congress, and for leaving the protection or prohibition of slavery in the hands of the Territorial Legislature.

Breckinridge was equally opposed to the intervention of Congress or the legislation of the Territory on the subject of slavery, believing it the duty of the Government to protect it.

The seceders from the Charleston Convention had met at St. Andrew's Hall, in that city, where they received a visit