Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[117] a programme implying the right of secession, and imposing upon the Federal government the official recognition of slavery as a national institution. This was to render their union with the majority of their former allies impossible. In consequence of these conflicting pretensions, the convention accomplished nothing, and from that moment the success of the Republican candidate appeared certain. Those who had brought about this result were not afraid of the consequences; they preferred it to the surrender of the least portion of their imperious programme. They had thrown off the mask. In the mean time, the party of conciliation which never fails to come to the surface during a great political crisis—but whose good intentions are almost always powerless, because it seeks to remedy an evil by ignoring it—had been long in existence under the name of the Whig party. It had thought to be able to remove the evil by adopting a programme full of protestations in favor of the Constitution, in which slavery was not even mentioned; it held a convention in Baltimore on the 9th of May, and selected Mr. Bell as its candidate. A few days after, May 16th, the Republican convention which assembled at Chicago adopted for its platform the maintenance of the Union, a denial of the right of secession, a guarantee of the principle of free labor as the basis of the Constitution, and the restriction of slavery to the States or Territories where it already existed. The care of presenting this platform to the voters of the country—the only one honest, just, and worthy of the great Republic—was entrusted on the 19th to Mr. Lincoln, already known for his uprightness, his legal acquirements, and his political experience.

After several attempts at reconciliation between the various fractions of the Democratic party, its division became final. The Charleston convention was followed by two hostile conventions sitting at the same time in Baltimore—one of which, on the 21st of June, selected Mr. Douglas as its candidate, and the other, on the 23d, Mr. Breckenridge. The latter, who was at that time Vice-President of the United States, represented the ultra slave policy of the South.

On the 6th of November, 4,680,180 American citizens elected delegates: the Presidential electors pledged to vote for Mr. Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes; those representing the two fractions