Such was the situation when the two great parties assembled in their National conventions for the {376} nomination of their respective candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency. It was indicated from the first day of the Congressional session of 1851-52, that the finality of the Compromise Acts would be a plank in the platforms of both parties, although it was soon revealed that the Whig party leaders were divided upon the subject. The Democratic convention met June 1st, at Baltimore, and, on account of the three-cornered fight between Buchanan, Cass, and Douglas, was obliged to produce a "dark horse." This proved to be General Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, a good lawyer, a brave soldier, a fine orator, and a courtly gentleman. He was known to be a true friend to the Compromise Acts, and was entirely acceptable to the South. The platform contained the finality plank. The Whig convention met fifteen days later, at the same place. The Northern Whigs, under the lead of Seward, were determined to defeat both Fillmore and Webster, chiefly on account of their fidelity in the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law. The Southerners were for Fillmore first, and then Webster, for the same reason. A sufficient number of the Northern delegates voted with the Southerners to put the finality plank into the platform, and then offered the Southerners one of their own fellow-citizens, General Scott, the military hero of the country. The Southerners finally accepted the offer. If Seward desired the defeat and destruction of the Whig party, he could not have acted more adroitly. It was to be foreseen that the Northern Whigs would not be wholly faithful to their own choice upon that platform, and that many of the Southern Whigs would arrive at the conclusion that the Democratic platform and the Democratic candidate furnished stronger guarantees for {377} the finality of the Compromise Measures than the Whig platform and candidate did. [Sidenote: The deaths of Clay and of Webster, and the appearance of a Free-soil candidate.] Clay died at the beginning of the campaign, and Webster at the end of it; and, in the midst of it, Sumner succeeded in getting in his ferocious attack on the Fugitive Slave Law, in a four hours speech before the Senate, and the Free-soilers set up a candidate, Mr. Hale, for the suffrages of the Abolitionists and the anti-slavery-extensionists. All of these events were unfavorable to the Whigs; still, they did not probably determine the result. The people were determined to have peace in regard to the slavery question, and they felt that the Democratic party was more likely to give them the peace they desired than the Whig party. [Sidenote: The overwhelming Democratic victory of 1852.]