5. _Resolved_, That the Democratic party will expect of the next administration that every proper effort be made to insure our ascendancy in the Gulf of Mexico, and to maintain permanent protection to the great outlets through which are emptied into its waters the products raised out of the soil and the commodities created by the industry of the people of our Western valleys and of the Union at large. _Resolved_, That the administration of Franklin Pierce has been true to Democratic principles, and therefore true to the great interests of the country. In the face of violent opposition he has maintained the laws at home, and vindicated the rights of American citizens abroad; and therefore we proclaim our unqualified admiration of his measures and policy. When Buchanan was nominated for President everything indicated his election by a very large majority and without a serious struggle. It was evident to all that the antislavery sentiment was making rapid strides in the North. The Democrats felt certain of a solid vote in the South, and they did not regard it as possible for the Republican party to unite the American and conservative Whig elements to sufficient extent to enable it to make a hopeful contest in Pennsylvania, New York, and the Western Democratic States; but very soon after the meeting of the first Republican National Convention the new party grew with such rapidity that the Democratic leaders finally looked the fact in the face that they had a very desperate and doubtful contest before them. The Republican party first appeared in the political arena in 1854. It had then a small organization in New York State, and cast a sufficient number of votes to elect Clark, the Whig candidate, for Governor, over Seymour, the Democratic candidate, who lost the Governorship by 309 majority. I was at the cradle of the Republican party; was a delegate to its first State convention, held in Pittsburg, Penn., in 1855. It was a mass convention, composed of a loose aggregation of political free-thinkers, but a number of very able men, including Giddings and Bingham, of Ohio, and Allison, of Pennsylvania, who presided, delivered addresses. There was but one State office to fill in Pennsylvania, that of Canal Commissioner. The convention was made up very largely of the aggressive Abolition element of the State, small in number, but bold and assertive in action, as was shown by the spontaneous nomination of Passmore Williamson, who was then in prison for contempt of court in a fugitive slave case. The nomination was resented by all the conservative Whigs and by the Americans, and without the votes of those parties the Republican organization could not carry a township in the State. Williamson was finally persuaded to retire, and the Whig, American, and Republican committees united on Thomas Nicholson, of Beaver, but the elements were too discordant, and the State was lost by some 12,000.