jurisdiction. Even the Douglas Democrats, who expressed a willingness to
yield to the Supreme Court's decision, did not profess to uphold Taney's
share in it.

As the Presidential election of 1860 drew near, the evidences of
separation became more manifest. The absorption of northern Democrats
into the Republican party increased until Douglas, in 1858, narrowly
escaped defeat in his contest with Lincoln for a re-election to the
Senate from Illinois. In 1860 the Republicans nominated Lincoln for
the Presidency on a platform demanding prohibition of slavery in
the Territories. The southern delegates seceded from the Democratic
convention, and nominated Breckenridge, on a platform demanding
congressional protection of slavery in the Territories. The remainder of
the Democratic convention nominated Douglas, with a declaration of its
willingness to submit to the decision of the Supreme Court on questions
of constitutional law. The remnants of the former Whig and American
parties, under the name of the Constitutional Union party, nominated
Bell without any declaration of principles. Lincoln received a majority
of the electoral votes, and became President. His popular vote was a
plurality.

Seward's address on the "Irrepressible Conflict," which closes this
volume, is representative of the division between the two sections, as
it stood just before the actual shock of conflict. Labor systems are
delicate things; and that which the South had adopted, of enslaving the
laboring class, was one whose influence could not help being universal
and aggressive. Every form of energy and prosperity which tended to
advance a citizen into the class of representative rulers tended also to
make him a slave owner, and to shackle his official policy and purposes
with considerations inseparable from his heavy personal interests. Men
might divide on other questions at the South; but on this question of
slavery the action of the individual had to follow the decisions of a
majority which, by the influence of ambitious aspirants for the lead,
was continually becoming more aggressive. In constitutional countries,
defections to the minority are a steady check upon an aggressive
majority; but the southern majority was a steam engine without a safety
valve.

In this sense Seward and Lincoln, in 1858, were correct; the labor
system of the South was not only a menace to the whole country, but one
which could neither decrease nor stand still. It was into