disguised sorrow they proceeded to present two radically different
reports. The convention, not yet in the least realizing that the great
Democratic party had suffered fatal shipwreck in the secret
committee-room, listened eagerly to the reports and explanatory
speeches of the majority and minority of the committee.

The majority report[1] planted itself squarely upon the property
theory and Congressional protection. Mr. Avery, of North Carolina,
said it was presented in the name of 17 States with 127 electoral
votes, every one of which would be cast for the nominee. He argued
that in occupying new Territories Southern men could not compete with
emigrant-aid societies at the North. These could send a voter to the
Territories for the sum of $200, while it would cost a Southern man
$1500. Secure political power by emigration, and permit the
Territorial Legislatures to decide the slavery question, and the South
would be excluded as effectually as by the Wilmot proviso. Cuba must
be acquired, and the flag of this great country must float over Mexico
and the Central American States. But if you apply this doctrine of
popular sovereignty, and establish a cordon of free-States from the
Pacific to the Atlantic, where in the future are the South to
emigrate? They asked the equal right to emigrate with their property,
and protection from Congress during the Territorial condition. They
would leave it to the people in convention assembled, when framing a
State constitution, to determine the question of slavery for
themselves. They had no purpose but to have a vexed question settled,
and to put the Democratic party on a clear unclouded platform, not a
doubled-faced one--one face to the North and one face to the South.

Henry B. Payne, of Ohio, presented and defended the report of the
minority.[2] It asserted that all questions in regard to property in
States or Territories were judicial in their character, and that the
Democratic party would abide by past and future decisions of the
Supreme Court concerning them. Mr. Payne explained that while the
majority report was supported by 15 slave and two free-States,[3]
representing 127 electoral votes, the minority report was indorsed by
15 free-States,[4] representing 176 electoral votes. He argued that,
by the universal consent of the Democratic party, the Cincinnati
platform referred this question of slavery to the people of the
Territories, declaring that Congress should in no event in