t in debate, and frequently clashed with Southern
supporters of the Administration. His pronounced Unionism estranged him
from the extremists on the Southern side, while his acceptance of
slavery as an institution guaranteed by the Constitution caused him
to hold aloof from the Republicans on the other. At the Democratic
convention at Charleston, S.C., in 1860 was a candidate for the
Presidential nomination, but received only the vote of Tennessee, and
when the convention reassembled in Baltimore withdrew his name. In the
canvass that followed supported John C. Breckinridge. At the session
of Congress beginning in December, 1860, took decided and unequivocal
grounds in opposition to secession, and on December 13 introduced a
joint resolution proposing to amend the Constitution so as to elect the
President and Vice-President by district votes, Senators by a direct
popular vote, and to limit the terms of Federal judges to twelve
years, the judges to be equally divided between slaveholding and
non-slaveholding States. In his speech on this resolution, December 18
and 19, declared his unyielding opposition to secession and announced
his intention to stand by and act under the Constitution. Retained
his seat in the Senate until appointed by President Lincoln military
governor of Tennessee, March 4, 1862. March 12 reached Nashville, and
organized a provisional government for the State; March 18 issued a
proclamation in which he appealed to the people to return to their
allegiance, to uphold the law, and to accept "a full and complete
amnesty for all past acts and declarations;" April 5 removed the mayor
and other officials of Nashville for refusing to take the oath of
allegiance to the United States, and appointed others; urged the holding
of Union meetings throughout the State, and frequently attended them in
person; completed the railroad from Nashville to the Tennessee River;
raised twenty-five regiments for service in the State; December 8, 1862,
issued a proclamation ordering Congressional elections, and on the 15th
levied an assessment upon the richer Southern sympathizers "in behalf of
the many helpless widows, wives, and children in the city of Nashville
who have been reduced to poverty and wretchedness in consequence of
their husbands, sons, and fathers having been forced into the armies of
this unholy and nefarious rebellion." Was nominated for Vice-President
of the United States at the national Republican convention