at Charleston that Douglas warmed to his subject. He refused to
recognize the right of a caucus of the Senate or of the House, to
prescribe new tests, to draft party platforms. That was a task
reserved, under our political system, for national conventions, made
up of delegates chosen by the people. Tried by the standard of the
only Democratic organization competent to pronounce upon questions of
party faith, he was no longer a heretic, no longer an outlaw from the
Democratic party, no longer a rebel against the Democratic
organization. "The party decided at Charleston also, by a majority of
the whole electoral college, that I was the choice of the Democratic
party of America for the Presidency of the United States, giving me a
majority of fifty votes over all other candidates combined; and yet my
Democracy is questioned!" "But," he added, and there is no reason to
doubt his sincerity, "my friends who know me best know that I have no
personal desire or wish for the nomination;... know that my name never
would have been presented at Charleston, except for the attempt to
proscribe me as a heretic, too unsound to be the chairman of a
committee in this body, where I have held a seat for so many years
without a suspicion resting on my political fidelity. I was forced to
allow my name to go there in self-defense; and I will now say that
had any gentleman, friend or foe, received a majority of that
convention over me, the lightning would have carried a message
withdrawing my name from the convention."[835]

Douglas was ready to acquit his colleagues in the Senate of a purpose
to dissolve the Union, but he did not hesitate to assert that such
principles as Yancey had advocated at Charleston would lead "directly
and inevitably" to a dissolution of the Union. Why was the South so
eager to repudiate the principle of non-intervention? By it they had
converted New Mexico into slave Territory; by it, in all probability,
they would extend slavery into the northern States of Mexico, when
that region should be acquired. "Why," he asked, "are you not
satisfied with these practical results? The only difference of opinion
is on the judicial question, about which we agreed to differ--which we
never did decide; because, under the Constitution, no tribunal on
earth but the Supreme Court could decide it." To commit the Democratic
party to intervention was to make the party sectional and to invite
never-ceasing conflict. "Intervention, North or