l the domestic institutions of the several States,
and that such States are the sole and proper judges of every
thing appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the
Constitution; that all efforts of the abolitionists, or others,
made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery,
or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to
lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences; and that
all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the
happiness of the people, and endanger the stability and
permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any
friend of our political institutions.

"That the foregoing proposition covers, and was intended to
embrace, the whole subject of slavery agitation in Congress; and
therefore the Democratic party of the Union, standing on this
national platform, will abide by and adhere to a faithful
execution of the acts known as the compromise measures settled by
the last Congress--the act for reclaiming fugitives from service
or labor included; which act being designed to carry out an
express provision of the Constitution, can not with fidelity
thereto be repealed, nor so changed as to destroy or impair its
efficiency.

"That the Democratic party will resist all attempts at renewing,
in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question,
under whatever shape or color the attempt may be made."

The Whig party, at the same city, in convention assembled, on the 16th
of June, 1852, nominated Gen. Winfield Scott, for the Presidency, on
the fifty-third ballot. The Whig party declared its position on the
slavery question as follows:

"That the series of acts of the Thirty-first Congress--the act
known as the fugitive-slave law included--are received and
acquiesced in by the Whig party of the United States, as a
settlement in principle and substance of the dangerous and
exciting question which they embrace; and so far as they are
concerned, we will maintain them and insist on their strict
enforcement, until time and experience shall demonstrate the
necessity of further legislation, to guard against the evasion of
the laws on the one hand, and the abuse of their powers on the
other, not impairing their present efficiency; and we deprecate
all agitation of the