Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/202

YANCEY HIS SPEECH OF PROTEST IN THE CHARLESTON CONVENTION" (I860) Bom in 1814, died in 1863; after being active against Nullification in South Carolina, he removed to Alabama in 1836; prominent as an Antiwhig orator in the Presidential campaign of 1840; elected to Congress in 1844; fought a bloodless duel with Congressman Cling- man in 1845; author of the "Alabama Platform" of 1847; vigor- ously opposed the Clay Compromise of 1850; became famoiis as a secession orator before the Civil War; led the seceders from the Charleston Convention in 1860; went to Europe seeking recognition from England and France of the Southern Confederacy; thereafter until his death a member of the Confederate Senate. It has been charged, in order to demoralize whatever influence we might be entitled to, either from our personal or political characteristics or as representatives of the State of Alabama, that we are disruptionists, disunionists per se; that we desire to break up the party in the State of Ala- bama, to break up the party in the Union, and to I From his speech in the National Democratic Convention at Charleston, April 28, 1860, in support of the protest of the Alabama delegation. Printed here from a rare pamphlet report of the pro- ceedings of the convention, found in the New York Public Library. Yancey in this convention was the leader of the seceders, who afterward met in Baltimore and nominated Breckenridge. Wood- row Wilson says of Yancey's work at this time: "It was he more than any other, who taught the South what Douglas really meant; he more than any other, who split the ranks of the Democratic party at Charleston, made the election of Doug- las impossible, and brought Lincoln in." 192