In the interval between the Charleston and the Baltimore conventions, the Davis resolutions were pressed to a vote in the Senate, with the purpose of shaping party opinion. They passed by votes which gave a deceptive appearance of Democratic unanimity. Only Senator Pugh parted company with his Democratic colleagues on the crucial resolution; yet he represented the popular opinion at the North.[840] The futility of these resolutions, so far as practical results were concerned, was demonstrated by the adoption of Clingman's resolution, that the existing condition of the Territories did not require the intervention of Congress for the protection of property in slaves.[841] In other words, the South was insisting upon rights which were barren of practical significance. Slave-holders were insisting upon the right to carry their slaves where local conditions were unfavorable, and where therefore they had no intention of going.[842] The nomination of Lincoln rather than Seward, at the Republican convention in Chicago, was a bitter disappointment to those who felt that the latter was the real leader of the party of moral ideas, and that the rail-splitter was simply an "available" candidate.[843] But Douglas, with keener insight into the character of Lincoln, said to a group of Republicans at the Capitol, "Gentlemen, you have nominated a very able and a very honest man."[844] For the candidate of the new Constitutional Union party, which had rallied the politically unattached of various opinions in a convention at Baltimore, Douglas had no such words of praise, though he recognized John Bell as a Unionist above suspicion and as an estimable gentleman. These nominations rendered it still less prudent for Northern Democrats to accept a candidate with stronger Southern leanings than Douglas. No Northern Democrat could carry the Northern States on a Southern platform; and no Southern Democrat would accept a nomination on the Douglas platform. Unless some middle ground could be found,--and the debates in the Senate had disclosed none,--the Democrats of the North were bound to adhere to Douglas as their first and only choice in the Baltimore convention.