Horace Greeley, The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-65: its Causes, Incidents, and Results: Intended to exhibit especially its moral and political phases with the drift and progress of American opinion respecting human slavery from 1776 to the close of the War for the Union. Volume I.

[191] passed the Senate by the strong vote of 33 Yeas to 22 Nays — all from Free States--but, on its reaching the House, Mr. Alex. II. Stephens, of Georgia, moved that it do lie on the table, which prevailed; Yeas 112 (30 of them Democrats from Free States; 8 Whigs from Slave States; and 74 Whigs from Free States); Nays 97; (21 Democrats from Free States, with all the Democrats, and all but 8, as aforesaid, of the Whigs, from Slave States). As the Court was then constituted, there was little room for doubt that its award would have been favorable to Slavery Extension; hence this vote. Mr. Clayton's Compromise, thus defeated, was never revived.

The Democratic National Convention for 1848 assembled at Baltimore on the 22d of May. Gen. Lewis Cass, of Michigan, received 125 votes for President on the first ballot, to 55 for James Buchanan, 53 for Levi Woodbury, 9 for John C. Calhoun, 6 for Gen. Worth, and 3 for Geo. M. Dallas. On the fourth ballot, Gen. Cass had 179 to 75 for all others, and was declared nominated. Gen. William O. Butler, of Kentucky, received 114 votes for Vice-President on the first ballot, and was unanimously nominated on the third. Two delegations from New York presenting themselves to this Convention — that of the Free Soilers, Radicals, or “Barnburners,” whose leader was Samuel Young, and that of the Conservatives or “Hunkers,” whose chief was Daniel S. Dickinson — the Convention attempted to split the difference by admitting both, and giving each half the vote to which the State was entitled. This the “Barnburners” rejected, leaving the Convention and refusing to be bound by its conclusions. The great body of them heartily united in the Free Soil movement, which culminated in a National Convention at Buffalo,¹ whereby Martin Van Buren was nominated for President, with Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, for Vice-President.

The regular Democratic or Cass and Butler Convention reiterated most of the resolves of its two predecessors, adding two or three in commendation of the War with Mexico; warmly congratulated France on her recent return to a republican form of government, and ambiguously indorsed the new Popular Sovereignty discovery as follows:

Resolved, That in the recent development of this grand political truth, of the sovereignty of the people and their capacity for self-government, which is prostrating thrones and erecting republics on the ruins of despotism in the Old World, we feel that a high and sacred duty is devolved, with increased responsibility, upon the Democratic party of this country, as the party of the People, to sustain and advance among us Constitutional Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, by continuing to resist all monopolies and exclusive legislation for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many, and by a vigilant and consistent adherence to those principles and compromises of the Constitution which are broad enough and strong enough to embrace and uphold the Union as it was, as it is, and the Union as it shall be, in the full expansion of the energies and capacity of this great and progressive people.

At this Convention, the Calhoun or extreme Southern dogma of the constitutional right of each slave-holder to remove with his slaves into any Federal Territory, and hold them there in defiance of Congress