The Democratic National Convention met in Baltimore on the first day of June, 1852. General Cass, though he had reached his seventieth year, was again in the field. Mr. Buchanan, then sixty-one years of age, was the candidate next in strength, and Stephen A. Douglas was third. Douglas was but thirty-nine years old, the youngest man ever formally presented for the Presidency by a State delegation in a National convention. Governor Marcy was fourth in the order of strength. There were scattering votes for other candidates, but these four were seriously and hopefully urged by their respective supporters. Marcy was in many respects the fittest man to be nominated, but the fear was that the old dissensions of the New- York Democracy, now seemingly healed, would open afresh if the chief of one of the clans should be imposed on the other. Douglas was injured by his partial committal to what was known as the doctrine of "manifest destiny,"--the indefinite acquisition of territory southward, especially in the direction of the West Indies. Cass was too old. Buchanan lacked personal popularity; and, while he had the Pennsylvania delegation in his favor, a host of enemies from that State, outside the convention, warred against him most bitterly. No one of these eminent men could secure two-thirds of the delegates as required by the iron rule, and on the forty-ninth ballot Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, who had been among the "scattering" on several preceding votes, was unanimously nominated. The suggestion of Pierce's name was not so spontaneous and sudden as it was made to appear. The precise condition of affairs was discerned before the convention met, and some sagacious and far- seeing men, among whom the late Caleb Cushing was one, and General Benjamin F. Butler another, had canvassed the merits of Pierce before the convention met. They saw that from his record in Congress he would be entirely acceptable to the South, and at the opportune moment their plans were perfected and Pierce was nominated with a great show of enthusiasm. William R. King of Alabama was selected to run as Vice-President. General Pierce had many qualities that rendered him a strong candidate. He had served with credit if not distinction both in the House and the Senate. He was elected to the House in 1832, when he was but twenty-eight years of age, and resigned his seat in the Senate in 1842. In the ten years which intervened before his nomination for the Presidency, he had devoted himself to the law with brilliant success, leaving it only for his short service in the Mexican war. He was still a young man when he was preferred to all the prominent statesmen of his party as a Presidential candidate. He was remarkably attractive in personal appearance, prepossessing in manner, ready and even eloquent as a public speaker, fluent and graceful in conversation. He presented thus a rare combination of the qualities which attach friends and win popular support.