ivil war.
The success of the Republicans in the House of Representatives,
the violent scenes in the House, notably those between Potter,
Pryor, Barksdale, and Lovejoy, were indications that the south was
aggressive, and that the north would fight. The meeting of the
Democratic convention at Charleston, on the 23rd of April, soon
disclosed an almost equal division of its members as to slavery in
the territories. The southern platform was adopted by a majority
of one in its committee on resolutions, but rejected by a majority
of the convention. This was the vital issue between the followers
of Davis and Douglas, and Douglas won. A majority of the delegates
from six of the southern states thereupon withdrew from the convention
and adjourned to Richmond. Thus, the first secession was from a
Democratic convention. The remainder of that convention adjourned
to Baltimore, at which city Douglas was nominated for President.
The seceding delegates nominated Breckenridge. Thus, the Democratic
party, which, in every stage of the slavery controversy, had taken
sides with the south, was itself broken on the rock of slavery,
and condemned to certain defeat.

The Republican convention met at Chicago on the 16th of May, with
a defined line of public policy which was adopted unanimously by
the convention. The only question to be determined was, who should
be the candidate for President, who would best represent the
principles agreed upon. Seward, Chase and Bates were laid aside,
and Abraham Lincoln, one stronger than any of these, was unanimously
nominated. The nomination of a candidate by a third party, ignoring
the slavery question, did not change the issue. The conflict was
now between freedom and slavery, an issue carefully avoided by the
two great parties prior to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

Thus Douglas, as a consequence of his own act, was destined to
defeat, and the irrepressible conflict was to be finally determined
by the people in the choice between Lincoln and Breckenridge, with
the distinct declaration, made by the delegates seceding from the
Charleston convention, that if Lincoln was elected their states
would secede from the Union, and establish an independent government
founded upon slavery. This was the momentous issue involved in
the election.

Congress adjourned on the 28th of June, 1860. On the 17th of July,
I was unanimously renominated at Shelby. John Shauck, a venerable
Quaker, 80 yea