The Formative Period
also nominated Breckinridge. The chief difference between the Douglas and Breckinridge platforms was in the planks relating to the extension of slavery. The Douglas platform referred the whole question to the Supreme Court and promised acceptance of its judgment. The Breckinridge platform insisted upon regarding the Dred Scott decision as conclusive of the whole matter. Both demanded enforcement of the fugitive slave law and urged the acquisition of Cuba and government aid for the Pacific Railway.
The Constitutional Union party held its convention at Baltimore on May 9th and nominated John Bell of Tennessee for President and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice-President. It adopted no platform except a reaffirmation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and an exhortation to their loyal fulfillment.
Then came the Republican convention. To it the whole nation had looked with an intensity of interest far surpassing all that the others commanded. The Republican party had in 1859 carried every northern state in which an election was held except four. One was California which was assumed to be hopelessly Democratic. The second was Oregon which went Democratic by only 59 votes. The third was New York where there was some dissension between Seward and Greeley and which the Republicans lost by fewer than 2,000 votes. The fourth was Rhode Island where the Republicans were defeated by a fusion of all other parties. Taken all together the northern states had given a heavy Republican majority. In these circumstances there was general expectation that the Republican convention would name, as it did, the next President of the United States.
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