bstantially no division. Their experience in 1848 with Gen.
Cass and his "Nicholson letter," had convinced them that nothing
was to be gained by mincing matters, and that a hearty, complete
and unhesitating surrender to slavery was the surest means of
success. The Democrats in Congress, both North and South, had very
generally favored this "settlement," and there was now no division
in the party except as to men. The candidates were Cass, Buchanan,
Douglas, and Marcy; and the National Convention assembled on the
first of June. The platform of the party began with the declaration
of its "trust in the intelligence, the patriotism, and the
discriminating justice of the American people"; and then, in the
fourth and fifth resolutions, pronounced the Fugitive Slave Act
equally sacred with the Constitution, and pledged the party to
"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." So far as slavery was concerned it thus
became a recognized and authoritative principle of American Democracy
to muzzle the press and crush out the freedom of speech, as the
means of upholding and perpetuating its power. On this platform
Franklin Pierce was nominated on the forty-ninth ballot; and in
his letter of acceptance he declared that "the principles it embraces
command the approbation of my judgment, and with them I believe I
can safely say that no word nor act of my life is in conflict."
It is difficult to conceive of any words by which he could more
completely have abdicated his manhood and self-respect, and sounded
the knell of his own conscience. There was no lower deep, and he
was evidently the right man in the right place.

The Whig National Convention assembled on the sixteenth of June,
with Scott, Fillmore and Webster as the candidates. There was yet
a considerable anti-slavery element in the party, but it was
paralyzed and powerless. It had made a fatal mistake in submitting
to the nomination of Gen. Taylor, and became still more completely
demoralized by the accession of Fillmore, who turned his back upon
his past life, and threw himself into the arms of the slave-holders.
The old party had gone astray too long and too far to return, and
now determined to seek its fortunes in the desperate effort to
outdo the Democrats in cringing servility to the South. The platform
of the Convention expressed the reliance of the Whig