of all, the 1856 Cincinnati platform was reaffirmed. Then stocky Richardson, the Douglas floor manager, moved for harmony by offering to forget all about the controversial plank referring the ins and outs of popular sovereignty to the Supreme Court. This appeased no one; and as the crowd in the galleries sat tensely silent, the cotton-state delegations, one after another, announced their withdrawal. It was done quietly. A writer for the Richmond
Dispatch
recalled that “there was no swagger, no bluster. There were no threats, no denunciations. The language employed by the representatives of these seven independent sovereignties was as dignified as it was feeling, and as courteous as it was either. As one followed another in quick succession, one could see the entire crowdquiver as under a heavy blow. Every man seemed to look anxiously at his neighbor as if inquiring what is going to happen next. Down many a manly cheek did I see flow tears of heartfelt sorrow.” 12
Sorrow there may have been; among the Douglas contingent there was unquestionably dismay. They would have welcomed a small eruption, as a thing that would clear the air, rally Democratic sentiment in the North, and make it easier to get a two-thirds majority in the fight for a nomination; but it began to be clear that they had got a very large eruption indeed, which could easily make the nomination either unattainable or worthless, and a haunting sense that the split in the party could be prelude to a split in the Union itself began to torment the men from the Northwest. Delegate R. T. Merrick, of Illinois, arose to inquire, plaintively: “I find, sir, star after star madly shooting from the great Democratic galaxy. Why is it, and what is to come of it? Does it presage that, hereafter, star after star will shoot from the galaxy of the Republic, and the American Union become a fragment, and a parcel of sectional republics?”
Consoling answer there was none. Delegate Charles Russell, of Virginia, announced that if a break-up was indeed at hand, Virginia would go with the rest of the South. Virginia had seen John Brown and his violence, the appeal for a servile uprising, gunfire and death in a peaceful market town; Virginia today stood amid her sister states “in garments red with the blood of her children slain in the first outbreak of the ‘irrepressible conflict.’ ” Gaining eloquence as he continued, Delegate Russell looked mournfully to the uncertain future: “Not when her children fell at midnight beneath the weapon of the assassin was her heart penetrated with so profound a grief as that which will wring it when she is obliged to choose between a separate destiny with the South and her common destiny with the entire Republic.” Amid all of this, Editor Halstead looked at Yancey and found him “smiling as a bridegroom.” Things were going as Yancey wanted them to go.
The day ended so. The Douglas people had their platform, plus a split convention and the prospect that there would presently be two national Democratic parties.
That night there was a Fourth of July air in Charleston. The moon came out, to silver the live oaks and their Spanish moss andto gleam from the fronts of the fine old houses, and the Southern delegates who had left the convention met in St. Andrews’ Hall. A band was playing, and in the street people were cheering for Yancey. Yancey appeared, declaring that the delegates who had seceded would now form the “constitutional Democratic convention,” with the others making do as well as they could as a rump convention. The South, he cried, must stand as a unit; perhaps, even now, “the pen of the historian was nibbed to write the story of a new revolution.” 13
4: “
The Party Is Split Forever
”
What was left of the Democratic convention did its best to pick up the pieces. It had lost fifty delegates, along with all chance for unity and most of its prospects for victory in the presidential election, and three days were
Dispatch
recalled that “there was no swagger, no bluster. There were no threats, no denunciations. The language employed by the representatives of these seven independent sovereignties was as dignified as it was feeling, and as courteous as it was either. As one followed another in quick succession, one could see the entire crowdquiver as under a heavy blow. Every man seemed to look anxiously at his neighbor as if inquiring what is going to happen next. Down many a manly cheek did I see flow tears of heartfelt sorrow.” 12
Sorrow there may have been; among the Douglas contingent there was unquestionably dismay. They would have welcomed a small eruption, as a thing that would clear the air, rally Democratic sentiment in the North, and make it easier to get a two-thirds majority in the fight for a nomination; but it began to be clear that they had got a very large eruption indeed, which could easily make the nomination either unattainable or worthless, and a haunting sense that the split in the party could be prelude to a split in the Union itself began to torment the men from the Northwest. Delegate R. T. Merrick, of Illinois, arose to inquire, plaintively: “I find, sir, star after star madly shooting from the great Democratic galaxy. Why is it, and what is to come of it? Does it presage that, hereafter, star after star will shoot from the galaxy of the Republic, and the American Union become a fragment, and a parcel of sectional republics?”
Consoling answer there was none. Delegate Charles Russell, of Virginia, announced that if a break-up was indeed at hand, Virginia would go with the rest of the South. Virginia had seen John Brown and his violence, the appeal for a servile uprising, gunfire and death in a peaceful market town; Virginia today stood amid her sister states “in garments red with the blood of her children slain in the first outbreak of the ‘irrepressible conflict.’ ” Gaining eloquence as he continued, Delegate Russell looked mournfully to the uncertain future: “Not when her children fell at midnight beneath the weapon of the assassin was her heart penetrated with so profound a grief as that which will wring it when she is obliged to choose between a separate destiny with the South and her common destiny with the entire Republic.” Amid all of this, Editor Halstead looked at Yancey and found him “smiling as a bridegroom.” Things were going as Yancey wanted them to go.
The day ended so. The Douglas people had their platform, plus a split convention and the prospect that there would presently be two national Democratic parties.
That night there was a Fourth of July air in Charleston. The moon came out, to silver the live oaks and their Spanish moss andto gleam from the fronts of the fine old houses, and the Southern delegates who had left the convention met in St. Andrews’ Hall. A band was playing, and in the street people were cheering for Yancey. Yancey appeared, declaring that the delegates who had seceded would now form the “constitutional Democratic convention,” with the others making do as well as they could as a rump convention. The South, he cried, must stand as a unit; perhaps, even now, “the pen of the historian was nibbed to write the story of a new revolution.” 13
4: “
The Party Is Split Forever
”
What was left of the Democratic convention did its best to pick up the pieces. It had lost fifty delegates, along with all chance for unity and most of its prospects for victory in the presidential election, and three days were
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