The Democratic candidate in his letter of acceptance did not seek to resolve the mystery of the platform, but left the question just as he found it in the resolutions of the convention. The result was that Northern people supported Mr. Buchanan in the belief, so energetically urged by Mr. Douglas, that the people of the Territories had the right to determine the slavery question for themselves at any time. The Southern people supported Mr. Buchanan in the full faith that slavery was to be protected in the Territories until a State government should be formed and admission to the Union secured. The Democratic doctrine of the North and the Democratic doctrine of the South were, therefore, in logic and in fact, irreconcilably hostile. By the one, slavery could never enter a Territory unless the inhabitants thereof desired and approved it. By the other slavery had a foot-hold in the Territories under the Constitution of the United States, and could not be dislodged or disturbed by the inhabitants of a Territory even though ninety-nine out of every hundred were opposed to it. In the Territorial Legislatures laws might be passed to protect slavery but not to exclude it. From such contradictory constructions in the same party, conflicts were certain to arise. MR. BUCHANAN ELECTED PRESIDENT. The Democrats of the North sought, not unsuccessfully, to avoid the slavery question altogether. They urged other considerations upon popular attention. Mr. Buchanan was presented as a National candidate, supported by troops of friends in every State of the Union. Fremont was denounced as a sectional candidate, whose election by Northern votes on an anti-slavery platform would dissolve the Union. This incessant cry exerted a wide influence in the North and was especially powerful in commercial circles. But in spite of it, Fremont gained rapidly in the free States. The condition of affairs in Kansas imparted to his supporters a desperate energy, based on principle and roused to anger. An elaborate and exciting speech on the "Crime against Kansas," by Senator Sumner, was followed by an assault from Preston S. Brooks, a member of the House from South Carolina, which seriously injured Mr. Sumner, and sensibly increased the exasperation of the North. When a resolution of the House to expel Brooks was under consideration, he boasted that "a blow struck by him then would be followed by a revolution." This but added fuel to a Northern flame already burning to white- heat. Votes by tens of thousands declared that they did not desire a Union which was held together by the forbearance or permission of any man or body of men, and they welcomed a test of any character that should determine the supremacy of the Constitution and the strength of the government.