As the time for another Presidential election drew near, Whigs and Democrats were alike engrossed with the consideration of their "final settlement" of the slavery question, and their attitude respecting it in the impending struggle. Among the latter there was substantially no division. Their experience in 1848 with Gen. Cass and his "Nicholson letter," had convinced them that nothing was to be gained by mincing matters, and that a hearty, complete and unhesitating surrender to slavery was the surest means of success. The Democrats in Congress, both North and South, had very generally favored this "settlement," and there was now no division in the party except as to men. The candidates were Cass, Buchanan, Douglas, and Marcy; and the National Convention assembled on the first of June. The platform of the party began with the declaration of its "trust in the intelligence, the patriotism, and the discriminating justice of the American people"; and then, in the fourth and fifth resolutions, pronounced the Fugitive Slave Act equally sacred with the Constitution, and pledged the party to "resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color the attempt may be made." So far as slavery was concerned it thus became a recognized and authoritative principle of American Democracy to muzzle the press and crush out the freedom of speech, as the means of upholding and perpetuating its power. On this platform Franklin Pierce was nominated on the forty-ninth ballot; and in his letter of acceptance he declared that "the principles it embraces command the approbation of my judgment, and with them I believe I can safely say that no word nor act of my life is in conflict." It is difficult to conceive of any words by which he could more completely have abdicated his manhood and self-respect, and sounded the knell of his own conscience. There was no lower deep, and he was evidently the right man in the right place.