When the proceedings of your convention reached me in a foreign land, they excited emotions of gratitude which I might in vain attempt to express. This was not because the Democracy of my much-loved State had by their own spontaneous movement placed me in nomination for the Presidency, an honor which I had not sought, but because this nomination constitutes of itself the highest evidence that, after a long course of public services, my public conduct has been approved by those to whom I am indebted, under Providence, for all the offices and honors I have ever enjoyed. In success and in defeat, in the sunshine and in the storm, they have ever been the same kind friends to me, and I value their continued confidence and good opinion far above the highest official honors of my country. The duties of the President, whomsoever he may be, have been clearly and ably indicated by the admirable resolutions of the convention which you have just presented to me, and all of which, without reference to those merely personal to myself, I heartily adopt. Indeed, they met my cordial approbation from the moment when I first perused them on the other side of the Atlantic. They constitute a platform broad, national, and conservative, and one eminently worthy of the Democracy of our great and good old State. These resolutions, carried into execution with inflexibility and perseverance, precluding all hope of changes, and yet in a kindly spirit, will ere long allay the dangerous excitement which has for some years prevailed on the subject of domestic slavery, and again unite all portions of our common country in the ancient bonds of brotherly affection, under the flag of the Constitution and the Union. The Democratic National Convention assembled at Cincinnati soon afterwards, and from a gentleman who was present, although not a member of the body—my friend, Mr. S. L. M. Barlow of New York—I have received an account of what took place, which I prefer to quote rather than to give one of my own, which could only be compiled from the public journals of the time: