Coming Fury, Volume 1 (13 page)

It would take the credentials committee three days to wrestle with this problem, and until the wrestling ended, the convention could do nothing but wait, its collective temperature rising hour by hour. Douglas men paraded the streets with brass bands, pausing when the spirit moved them to listen to stump speeches; Southern die-hards, in turn, had a way of gathering in front of the Gilmore House, where Yancey was staying, for stump speeches of their own; and nothing that was said or done at any of these meetings served to promote harmony. At the Douglas meetings, held often enough on the steps of the home of the eminent Reverdy Johnson, former Senator, former Attorney General, and a leader of the “moderates” on the slavery question, orators shouted that devotion to Douglas was the only true test of Democratic fidelity. At the Gilmore House, in turn, the Douglas men were denounced as abolitionists in disguise, and Yancey cried that these Douglas leaders were selfish men who, ostrich-like, “buried their heads in the sands of squatter sovereignty” and thereby exposed their anti-slavery posteriors. On the fringes of these meetings there were often a number of fist fights.
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The unyielding temper of the anti-Douglas group had been hardened by events in Richmond a week earlier. At Richmond the
Southern delegates who had walked out at Charleston had reconvened, asserting their claim to represent the true Democratic faith and, after oratory, agreeing in effect to wait and see what happened at Baltimore; but the keynote speeches at Richmond left no doubt that this wing of the party was in for a fight to the finish. Lieutenant Governor F. R. Lubbock, of Texas, who called the Richmond meeting to order, spoke for all hands when he declared that they had met “to carry out our principles whatever may be the result,” and he drew loud applause when he asserted: “If we cannot succeed in sustaining those principles we must create—no, we will not ‘create’ a new Democratic party, but we will simply declare ourselves the true Democratic party, and we will unfurl our banner and go to the country upon true Democratic principles.” John Erwin, of Alabama, who succeeded him as permanent chairman of this impermanent convention, insisted that “we must yield nothing, whether we remain here or whether we go elsewhere.” Whatever happened, the South must insist on its rights, and “the serpent of squatter sovereignty must be strangled.”
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On June 21, fourth day of the Baltimore convention, the credentials committee had finished its labor. The Front Street Theater was jammed when the delegates were called to order, and proceedings were delayed when a section of the floor gave way, sending delegates in a wild scramble for safety, a sudden panic which might have led to serious trouble but fortunately did not. After an hour’s recess, during which proper repairs were made, the session got under way and the committee offered two reports—a majority report, which held that new delegations from Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas should be seated, with a compromise by which the Georgia delegation would be equally divided between seceders and newcomers; and a minority report emphasizing states’ rights and demanding the seating of the original Charleston delegations. The majority report, of course, was strictly pro-Douglas. If the convention accepted it, Douglas’s nomination was certain; almost equally certain, by now, was the fact that such action would cause the Southern extremists to walk out of this convention just as they had walked out at Charleston. The convention would have to decide; but further adjournment became necessary when the big New York delegation asked for time in which to make up its mind—
a step which discouraged the Douglas people, who believed the New Yorkers had already committed themselves to the Douglas cause.
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So the business went over to the next day, Friday, June 22, and at seven o’clock that evening there came the showdown. The theater was packed, as before, and there was a strange silence as the roll was called. Everyone realized that by now the Democracy had crowded itself into a corner; no matter how this vote went, the party was going to divide, and the division would almost inevitably mean the election of Abraham Lincoln in November. But until the vote was recorded, something might happen; and just now, suddenly, a rumor went the rounds—a rumor that Senator Douglas had offered to withdraw his name in the interests of harmony.

The rumor, as it happened, was perfectly true. Douglas had given one of those letters of withdrawal to his floor manager, Richardson, of Illinois, but Mr. Richardson was keeping the letter in his pocket and was saying nothing about it. Suspecting, perhaps, that this was what Richardson would do, Douglas had also written to Dean Richmond, one of the leaders of the New York Democracy, and this letter, dated June 22, read as follows:

“The steadiness with which New York has sustained me will justify a word of counsel. The safety of the cause is the paramount duty of every Democrat. The unity of the party and the maintenance of its principles inviolate are more important than the election or defeat of any individual. If my enemies are determined to divide and destroy the Democratic party, and perhaps the country, rather than see me elected, and if the unity of the party can be preserved and its ascendancy perpetuated by dropping my name and uniting upon some other reliable non-intervention and Union-loving Democrat, I beseech you, in consultation with our friends, to pursue that course which will save the party and the country without regard to my individual interest. I mean all this letter implies. Consult freely and act boldly for the right.”

This dispatch was not exactly an olive branch. With its firm insistence on non-intervention—that is, non-intervention by the Federal government in the matter of slavery in the territories—and on Union-loving Democrats, it by no means constituted a surrender to the Southern group. At most, it would simply remove
one controversial figure from the party fight; the fight itself, if Douglas’s letter were taken at face value, would continue. But for whatever the letter might be worth, Dean Richmond had it. Like Richardson, he kept it securely pocketed.

The convention proceeded to adopt the majority report, and defeated a series of parliamentary maneuvers looking toward a reconsideration. The Douglas men had won; their delegates were officially seated; now the Senator from Illinois could be nominated.

He could not, however, be nominated by a united convention. Someone moved that the convention now ballot on candidates, but Chairman Cushing, refusing to recognize the motion, gave the floor to Delegate Charles W. Russell, of Virginia, who arose to make an announcement:

“I understand that the action of this convention upon the various questions arising out of the reports from the committee on credentials has become final, complete and irrevocable. And it has become my duty now, by direction of a large majority of the delegation from Virginia, respectfully to inform this body that it is inconsistent with their convictions of duty to participate longer in its deliberations.”

The Civil War came out of the words of many men, spoken under intense pressure and out of the depths of deep conviction and overpowering emotions. In part it came out of the quiet, mannered announcement of Delegate Russell. One more moment of decision had passed, not to be called back.…

When Mr. Russell finished, there was a throbbing wave of confused sound—cheers, hisses, angry cries for “Order!”, a moving and a shifting of delegates and spectators. Caleb Cushing ordered the galleries cleared, made no attempt to enforce the order, waited for the tumult to subside. (The galleries were applauding Mr. Russell: whatever the convention itself might do, most of the spectators this night seemed to be much against the Senator from Illinois.) Then, after some minutes of turmoil, most of the Virginia delegates got up and left the hall. They were followed by men from Carolina and from Tennessee. The delegation from Kentucky retired to caucus. A number of Maryland delegates withdrew, to be followed by scattered groups from a few Northern states and by a substantial bloc from the Pacific Coast, where the party was largely dominated
by pro-Southerners. Essentially, the walkout meant that the deep South had formalized the decision made earlier at Charleston: it would not go along with Douglas under any circumstances.

Not all of the Southerners left the hall, and those who remained were plainly uneasy. Delegate T. B. Flournoy, of Arkansas, protested that he was a thick-and-thin slavery man who would “apply the torch to the magazine and blow it to atoms” before he would submit to wrong; yet he did not think a wrong was being done here, and he firmly believed that “in the doctrine of non-intervention and popular sovereignty are enough to protect the interest of the South.” And S. H. Moffat, of Virginia, cried passionately: “In the name of common sense, have we not enough of higher law, revolutionary, abolitionist scoundrels in the North to fight without fighting our friends?”

The delegates applauded fervently, but nothing was changed. The factions of the Democracy were going to fight their friends, the atmosphere having become so filled with distorting heat waves that friends and enemies had begun to look terribly alike. Late in the evening, unable to proceed further without rest, the convention adjourned until morning. There were the usual mass meetings that night, but the spirit had gone out of them. All men could see that they had crossed a divide, and Editor Halstead, doggedly covering his fourth convention in three months, reported that “the private cursing was not loud but deep.”
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Having lost its anti-Douglas cotton-state delegations, the convention discovered on the following morning that it was also losing its chairman. Caleb Cushing announced that inasmuch as delegations from a majority of the states had withdrawn, either wholly or in part, he felt that it was his duty to resign. His speech was greeted with cheers—the Douglas crowd cheering because they were happy to see Cushing leave (they had considered him anti-Douglas, from the start), and the galleries cheering to show that they approved his course. David Tod, of Ohio, took Cushing’s place, and tried to call the roll of states so that nominations could be made. But there was continuing uproar, with more speeches to be made, or at least to be attempted. One of these came from Ben Butler, who announced that he himself was quitting this convention, partly because there had been a partial withdrawal of a majority of the states and
partly because “I will not sit in a convention where the African slave trade, which is piracy by the laws of my country, is approvingly advocated.” Butler stalked out, followed by part of the Massachusetts delegation. Then Pierre Soulé, of Louisiana, obtained the floor.

Soulé was a member of the new pro-Douglas delegation from Louisiana, seated by the convention’s action in adopting the majority report of the committee on credentials. He was dark, intense, unmistakably French in manner and in accent, and he arose to denounce “the conspiracy which has been brooding for months past” to defeat Senator Douglas; a conspiracy, he said (with obvious reference to the activities of the Buchanan administration leaders), which had been devised by “political fossils so much incrusted in office that there is hardly any power that can extract them.” He was bitter about the men who were so determined to defeat Douglas, and he spoke of them with scorn: “Instead of bringing a candidate to oppose him; instead of creating before the people issues upon which the choice of the nation could be enlightened; instead of principles discussed, what have we seen? An unrelenting war against the individual presumed to be the favorite of the nation—a war waged by an army of unprincipled and unscrupulous politicians, leagued with a power which could not be exerted on their side without disgracing itself and disgracing the nation.”
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Heartened, presumably, by the thought that there were still Douglas supporters in the South, the convention at last got down to the business of making a nomination. Since the die-hard anti-Douglas men had all departed, this was easy. On the first ballot, Douglas got 173 of 190½ votes cast, and on a second ballot he received 181½ out of 194½; and then the convention unanimously adopted a motion stating that inasmuch as Douglas had received two thirds of all the votes, he should be declared the nominee. Mild cheering and more speeches followed; and in the evening, after naming Senator Benjamin Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, as its choice for Vice-President, the convention sat back to listen to Richardson, of Illinois.

Senator Douglas, said Richardson, would accept the nomination. But he had been prepared, “for the harmony of the party, for the success of the party, for the preservation of the government always
and at all times,” to withdraw his name. Then Richardson read the letter which he had had in his pocket during the recent in-fighting.

Douglas’s letter to Richardson said what his letter to Richmond had said, in somewhat sharper language. Douglas began by reiterating his doctrine of non-intervention and went on: “While I can never sacrifice the principle, even to attain the Presidency, I will cheerfully and joyfully sacrifice myself to maintain the principle. If, therefore, you and my other friends, who have stood by me with such heroic firmness at Charleston and Baltimore, shall be of the opinion that the principle can be preserved and the unity and ascendancy of the Democratic party maintained and the country saved from the perils of Northern abolitionism and Southern disunion by withdrawing my name and uniting upon some other non-intervention and Union loving Democrat, I beseech you to pursue that course.”

Richardson put the letter back in his pocket and added his own final word of defiance to his foes in the deep South:

“I have borne this letter with me for three days, but those gentlemen who have seceded from this convention placed it out of my power to use it. And the responsibility, therefore, is on them.… We in the North have one sectional party to fight, and intend to whip them. You have an equally sectional party to fight in the South, and we expect you to whip them.”
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Then the convention adjourned, its labor accomplished for good or for ill. (One last chore remained. Senator Fitzpatrick, named for the vice-presidency, felt himself unable to accept, and the Democratic National Committee a few days later named Herschel V. Johnson, of Georgia, in his place.)