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222 T. W. Davenport. this adjourned convention a platform was adopted and candi- dates nominated for President and Vice-President of the nation. The Democratic national convention met in Cincinnati on the 2d of June, when Senator Douglas's great principle of "squatter sovereignty" was for the first time formally adopted by the party, and James Buchanan, a pliant tool of the slave power, was nominated for President and John C. Breckinridge, a slave-holding propagandist, for Vice-Presi- dent. Evidently, they were not despairing of success in sub- jugating Kansas to slavery with such a ticket as that aiding the ' ' border outlaws, ' ' and there were some grounds for such hopes. Colonel Buford, with his regiment of South Carolinians and Georgians, had arrived upon the border, armed and equipped for invasion; Kansas was again overrun, Lawrence was sacked, some smaller places pillaged, a few murders com- mitted, when Governor Geary called a halt upon such pro- ceedings for fear of jeopardizing the election of the Demo- cratic ticket, which then seemed imminent. He publicly declared that he was carrying James Buchanan upon his shoulders and that the peace must be preserved (until after election.) The Know-nothings met m convention at Philadelphia on the 22d of February, at which Millard Fillmore was nomi- nated for President, and September the 17th, what was left of th« Whig party ratified the nomination at Baltimore. The issue of extension vs. non-extension was thus practically joined by the Republican and Democratic parties, with the opportunity afforded those who cling to reminiscences, of voting the trimmers' ticket, headed by Fillmore, who carried only one small State, Maryland. The canvass of that year was more earnest, searching, and provoking than any pre- ceding one, and on the part of the Republicans, brim full of enthusiasm. Genuine enthusiasm is whole-souled and there- fore involves the moral feelings. And the question before the people was one that took in all of man's attributes and aspirations, industrial, social, political and religious; and as