tervene one
way or the other, and that all controversies should be settled by the
courts. Now the proposition of the majority report was to make a
complete retraction of those two cardinal doctrines of the Cincinnati
platform. The Northern mind had become thoroughly imbued with this
great doctrine of popular sovereignty. You could not tear it out of
their hearts unless you tore out their heart-strings themselves. "I
repeat, that upon this question of Congressional non-intervention we
are committed by the acts of Congress, we are committed by the acts of
National Democratic Conventions; we cannot recede without personal
dishonor, and, so help us God, we never will recede!"

Between these extremes of recommendation another member of the
platform committee--Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts--proposed a
middle course. He advocated the simple reaffirmance of the Cincinnati
platform. If it had suffered a double interpretation, so had the Bible
and the Constitution of the United States. But beyond serving to
consume time and amuse the convention, Mr. Butler's speech made no
impression. The real tournament of debate followed, between William L.
Yancey, of Alabama, and Senator George E. Pugh, of Ohio.

[Sidenote] Halstead, "Conventions of 1860," pp. 5, 48.

It turned out in the end that Mr. Yancey was the master-spirit of the
Charleston Convention, though that body was far from entertaining any
such suspicion at the beginning. In exterior appearance he did not
fill the portrait of the traditional fire-eater. He is described as "a
compact middle-sized man, straight-limbed, with a square-built head
and face, and an eye full of expression"; "a very mild and gentlemanly
man, always wearing a genuinely good-humored smile, and looking as if
nothing in the world could disturb the equanimity of his spirits." He
had, besides, a marvelous gift of persuasive oratory. He was the
Wendell Phillips of the South, for, like his Northern rival, he was a
born agitator. Above all his colleagues, he was the brain and soul and
irrepressible champion of the pro-slavery reaction throughout the
Cotton States. He was tireless and ubiquitous; traveling, talking,
writing, lecturing, animating every intrigue, directing every caucus,
making speeches and drafting platforms at every convention. To defend,
propagate, and perpetuate African slavery was his mission. He was the
ultra of the ultras, accepting the institution as morally right and
divinely sa