Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

The balloting began. Mr. Chapin, my colleague, a firm and consistent Democrat, voted with me, we having agreed to vote together, for I had learned that his preference was for Guthrie. We voted for Douglas seven times consecutively, and the secession of South Carolina made the vote so close that Mr. Douglas was within one vote of a majority.

The most ordinary understanding of the action of political conventions will convince any one that if he desires to bring forward an outside candidate with any hope of success, it is best never to have the name mentioned until the state of the canvass shows that a new name is desirable. Wherefore I looked around for a representative man to vote for, so that when I changed from Mr. Douglas, I could show the Southern delegates on whom I must rely to bring forward my candidate, that I was willing to take a representative Southern man as candidate for the presidency.

As I have said, I was quite willing so to do, because in looking over the histories of all the presidents on the questions of slavery, I found that the North on that question always got more under a Southern president than a Northern one. A Southerner had a standing that would sustain him in such action, while a Northern president looking for a re-election at that time would be inclined to cater to the South irrespective of principle. Accordingly when the next vote was called, my colleague and myself voted for Jefferson Davis. Whether we made a good selection, subsequent events have so fully demonstrated that I need not discuss that question.

Why my choice fell upon Davis was this: He was not a candidate even of his own State before the convention. He had highly distinguished himself as an officer and gallant soldier in the Mexican War. Statesmanlike in all his expressions, he ranked among the very first as a senator. No ultra notions as to the heresy of secession could at that time be found upon his record in the Senate. While in the Senate I had occasion, in behalf of the State of Massachusetts, to converse with him upon the question whether Massachusetts should be paid the interest on the war expenses incurred by her in 1812, when she acted in a way that pleased nobody, and certainly not a Southern Democrat.