But stranger than the fact that the prince of protectionists was now running for the presidency on a platform which ignored protection, was the fact that the Democratic party, strengthened again by its Southern wing, now accepted the platform of the Liberal Republicans, and in convention at Baltimore, in July following the Cincinnati meeting, nominated the Liberal Republican candidates for the presidency and the vice-presidency as its own candidates. The action of the Democrats, both as to the platform and the candidates, was almost unanimous, and it would be ungracious to express any suspicion of its sincerity. The change of profession on the part of the Southern Democrats was very great indeed, so great as to be surprising, but they had evidently come to the conclusion that it was useless to contend with the North any longer against the civil and political rights of the freedmen, and that it was best for all concerned to accept the inevitable, and try to put themselves in the most advantageous position possible for adjusting the relations of their section to it. [Sidenote: Mr. Greeley and the Democrats.] Mr. Greeley was, indeed, in strange company, but the company had come to him. He had not gone to them. He welcomed their support, and became contaminated by it in the eyes of a vast majority of the people of the North. His own great ambition to be President also caused him to say and to do some imprudent and undignified things. More than all, the time had not yet come for the great change. The country was fast approaching a financial crisis, and any shock would bring it on with such sudden violence as to make it widespread and disastrous. {267} [Sidenote: Division in the Democratic Party.] As the last move, the "straight-out" Democrats bolted the ticket in September, and at a convention held in Louisville, Kentucky, nominated Charles O'Conor of New York for President, and John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts for Vice-President. [Sidenote: The Republican platform and nominees.] The September and October elections in Vermont, Maine, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana demonstrated the hopelessness of the opposition to the radical Republicans. They had held their convention in Philadelphia in the early part of June, had issued a platform which simply asserted the righteousness of what they had done and the determination to persist in the course heretofore followed, and had nominated General Grant for re-election to the presidency with Senator Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, for his running mate. [Sidenote: The Republican triumph.]