een
casting about for a compromise candidate. Their choice fell eventually
upon General Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire. Friends were active in
his behalf as early as April, and by June they had hatched their plot.
It was not their plan to present his name to the convention at the
outset, but to wait until the three prominent candidates (Cass,
Douglas, and Buchanan) were disposed of. He was then to be put forward
as an available, compromise candidate.[390]

Was Douglas cognizant of the situation? While his supporters did not
abate their noisy demonstrations, there is some ground to believe that
he did not share their optimistic spirit. At all events, in spite of
his earlier injunctions, only eleven delegates from Illinois attended
the convention, while Pennsylvania sent fifty-five, Tennessee
twenty-seven, and Indiana thirty-nine. Had Douglas sent home the
intimation that the game was up? The first ballot told the story of
his defeat. Common rumor had predicted that a large part of the
Northwest would support him. Only fifteen of his twenty votes came
from that quarter, and eleven of these were cast by Illinois. It was
said that the Indiana delegates would divert their strength to him,
when they had cast one ballot for General Lane; but Indiana cast no
votes for Douglas. Although his total vote rose to ninety-two and on
the thirty-first ballot he received the highest vote of any of the
candidates, there was never a moment when there was the slightest
prospect of his winning the prize.[391]

On the thirty-fifth ballot occurred a diversion. Virginia cast fifteen
votes for Franklin Pierce. The schemers had launched their project.
But it was not until the forty-ninth ballot that they started the
avalanche. Pierce then received all but six votes. Two Ohio delegates
clung to Douglas to the bitter end. With the frank manliness which
made men forget his less admirable qualities, Douglas dictated this
dispatch to the convention: "I congratulate the Democratic party upon
the nomination, and Illinois will give Franklin Pierce a larger
majority than any other State in the Union,"--a promise which he was
not able to redeem.

If Douglas had been disposed to work out his political prospects by
mathematical computation, he would have arrived at some interesting
conclusions from the balloting in the convention. Indeed, very
probably he drew some deductions in his own intuitive way, without any
adventitious aid. Of the three rivals,