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| The Maryland Institute in 1860. |
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I will not sit in a Convention where the African Slave-trade — which is piracy by the laws of my country — is approvingly advocated.”
On the retirement of Mr. Cushing, Governor David Tod, of Ohio, one of the vice-presidents, took the chair, and the Convention proceeded to ballot for a Presidential candidate.
A considerable number of Southern delegates, who were satisfied with the Cincinnati platform, remained in the Convention, and, as their respective States were called, some of them made brief speeches.
One of these was Mr. Flournoy, of Arkansas, the temporary Chairman of the Convention at Charleston.
“I am a Southern man,” he said, “born and reared amid the institution of Slavery.
I first learned to whirl the top and bounce the ball with the young African.
Everything I own on earth is the result of slave-labor.
The bread that feeds my wife and little ones is produced by the labor of slaves.
They live on my plantation with every feeling of kindness, as between master and slave.
Sir, if I could see that there is anything intended in our platform unfriendly to the institution of Slavery--if I could see that we did not get every constitutional right we are entitled to, I would be the last on earth to submit in this Union; I would myself apply the torch to the magazine, and blow it into atoms, before I would submit to wrong.
But I feel that in the doctrines of nonintervention and popular sovereignty is enough to protect the interests of the South.”
This speech had a powerful effect upon delegates from the Free-labor States, in favor of Mr. Douglas; and of one hundred and ninety-four and a half votes cast, on the second ballot, he received one hundred and eighty-one and a half, when he was declared duly nominated for the Presidency.
James Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, was nominated for Vice-president. Two days afterward, Fitzpatrick declined the nomination, when the National Committee substituted Herschel V. Johnson, of Georgia.1 On the evening of the 23d, the Convention made a final adjournment.
The seceders, new and old assembled at noon on Saturday, the 23d, in the Maryland Institute Hall, situate on Baltimore Street and Marsh Market Space, a room more than three hundred feet in length and seventy in breadth, with a gallery extending entirely around.
It was capable of seating five thousand people; and it was almost full when the Convention was permanently organized by the appointment of Mr. Cushing to preside.
That gentleman was greeted, when he ascended the platform,
1 The National Committee assembled at the National Hotel, in Washington City, on the 25th of June. In it all the States were represented, excepting Delaware, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Oregon.
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