Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1: From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860Blaine, James Gillespie
History
Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1: From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860
Blaine, James Gillespie
United States -- History; United States -- History -- 1865-1898
up the Breckinridge convention, it was deemed probable that he
could carry all. Of the sixteen that voted for Douglas, it was
difficult to name one in which with a divided party he could be
sure of victory. United in support of either candidate, the party
could have made a formidable contest, stronger in the North with
Douglas, stronger in the South with Breckinridge. Had the Democracy
presented Douglas and Breckinridge as their National nominees, they
would have combined all the elements of strength in their party.
But passion and prejudice prevented. The South was implacable
toward Douglas, and deliberately resolved to accept defeat rather
than secure a victory under his lead.
DISRUPTION OF THE DEMOCRACY.
The disruption of the Democracy was undoubtedly hastened by the
political events which had occurred since the adjournment at
Charleston. An organization, styling itself the Constitutional-
Union Party, representing the successors of the Old Whigs and
Americans, had met in Baltimore, and nominated John Bell of Tennessee
for President, and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice-President.
The strength of the party was in the South. In the slave States
it formed the only opposition to the Democratic party, and was as
firm in defense of the rights of the slave-holder as its rival.
Its members had not been so ready to repeal the Missouri Compromise
as the Democrats, and they were unrelenting in their hostility to
Douglas, and severe in their exposure of his dogma of popular
sovereignty. They had effectively aided in bringing both the
doctrine and its author into disrepute in the South, and, if the
Democrats had ventured to nominate Douglas, they had their weapons
ready for vigorous warfare against him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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