The Democratic Candidates.
The New York Times, June 25, 1860
The Baltimore Convention has closed its labors. It met to nominate a Presidential candidate, and to adopt a platform; it has ended by giving the party two of each. Its ostensible object was to harmonize the party, to compromise points of difference, to reconcile sectional jealousies and distrusts, and to nominate a candidate who should unite the sentiment and support of the party, and thus secure a victory in the coming canvass. It has accomplished exactly the opposite of all these things. It has divided and demoralized the party,—sharpened and made more prominent its differences of principle,—aggravated its sectional and personal hatreds, and nominated two candidates, each of whom will aim, specially and primarily, to defeat the other. The Convention was not in fact a deliberative assembly at all. It was not a conference of delegates having common interests, common hopes and common aims. It was, from the outset, a duel of hostile sections. The South came into the Convention hoping to rule it, and determined, failing in that, to break it up. The Administration shared alike its ambition and its hatred, and lent it what little aid its enfeebled condition would permit. The North came, goaded by long years of suffering servitude, superior in force and resolute in its purpose to use it. There were some among them who hoped a chance would arise for compromise,—but the great body of the Northern delegates were determined upon the nomination of DOUGLAS at every hazard and at whatever cost. Finding that this could not be prevented, the South and the Administration resolved as the next step to defeat him at the polls; and it is for this specific object that their ticket has been put in nomination.
Their belief is that BRECKINRIDGE will carry most of the Southern States, and that he will draw off enough votes in doubtful Northern States to prevent their voting for DOUGLAS. They hope in this way to carry the election into Congress, and failing in that, to secure the success of LINCOLN—for unquestionably they would prefer that result to the election of DOUGLAS. Many of them are open Disunionists, and look to the success of the Republicans as the opportunity which will enable them, in Mr. YANCEY’s phrase, “to plunge the cotton States into revolution.” Others, who are not prepared for such an issue, deem a temporary defeat and exclusion from office the best medicine for the Democratic party, and will look to 1864 as certain to bring them united councils and renewed success. They will spare no effort, therefore, to defeat DOUGLAS, and whatever of influence may remain to the Administration will be remorselessly and unscrupulously used in aid of the same object. Mr. BUCHANAN is not a man of strong passions, but all the hatred of which his cold and clammy nature is susceptible is concentrated upon Mr. DOUGLAS. His ambition when he came into office was to annex Cuba. Time and grief have modified his aspirations—and he will leave his post contented, if he can secure the defeat of his hated rival.
The fact is Mr. BUCHANAN and Mr. DOUGLAS are the joint authors of the disruption of the Democratic Party, and it is doubtful whether either, could have accomplished that result alone. Mr. BUCHANAN’S endorsement of the Lecompton fraud laid the basis for dissensions which have led to its overthrow; but this issue could scarcely have been forced to so fatal a result, but for the resolute and injudicious championship of the Illinois Senator. Mr. BUCHANAN’s act was one of moral cowardice. He succumbed to the menaces of Southern politicians. Having neither the mental grasp nor the moral instinct to perceive the strength of the position he had before assumed,—lacking faith in the people, and having no reliance upon himself,—like all politicians who mistake intrigue for statesmanship, he sacrificed his party and his friends to the demands of selfish sectionalists who cared nothing for either. He knew the affair would arouse a storm, but he believed it would soon blow over. He hoped that Kansas could be forced into the Union with the Lecompton Constitution,—and that once in, as she would have her fate in her own hands, the contest could no longer be made one of national interest. And but for Mr. DOUGLAS, it is very probable that his calculations might have proved correct. Mr. DOUGLAS resisted his policy as perfidious, and in direct hostility to his own pledges and to the recognized principles of the Democratic Party. He succeeded in his warfare upon it, was sustained by his constituents, and returned to the Senate.
If Judge DOUGLAS had stopped there,—if he had been content with the brilliant victory he had achieved at home, and the unquestionable triumph he had secured over the Administration, and had foreborne, thenceforward, any further warfare upon it, he would have been made the nominee of the whole party almost by acclamation. He had done enough to identify himself thoroughly with the principle of Popular Sovereignty, while he had not forced the South into any open and embittered hostility against him. He had the heart of the Northern Democracy, and was universally recognized as the only man of that party who had any chance of carrying any of the Northern States. This conviction, in the absence of any special opposition from the South, would have given him the nomination as the regular candidate of the Democratic Party.
But, Mr. DOUGLAS has no faith in standing still. Gifted with a vigorous and restless intellect—being naturally energetic in his temperament and resolute in his purposes, he has no confidence in the popular recognition of a position or a principle. He wins all his victories by steady fighting—by constant pushing — by hard blows, followed up to the very moment of surrender. With him to stand still, to rely upon what he has already done, is neither easy nor safe. He feared the North would forget his fidelity unless he kept on proving it. So he wrote a treatise on Popular Sovereignty—stumped Ohio, making open and offensive assault upon the democracy of the South—courting a direct issue with the Administration, and showing clearly that he meant to create an irresistible Northern sentiment in his favor, and then compel the South to acquiesce in his nomination. The game was bold and manly, but it was also hazardous. No great community ever likes to be bullied into doing anything; and the South is especially sensitive on any point of this kind. Mr. DOUGLAS soon discovered the effect of his rashness, and sought to remedy it by his speech on the Conspiracy bill, in which he went just as far the other way, and for the sake of appeasing the South apparently surrendered the very principle which had given him his strength in the Northern States. But the proffered sacrifice came too late, and proved fortunately as harmless in the one section as it was useless in the other. Mr. DOUGLAS held his position as the only candidate who had positive Northern strength, but he had so deeply offended the South that even this fact proved unavailing in the Southern States. It was very evident, long before the meeting of the Charleston Convention, that he could only be the candidate of a portion of the Democratic Party.
The Seceders have acted with a good deal more malice than wisdom. It was supposed that they would select a candidate from the extreme South, in order to carry beyond peradventure the Cotton States, leaving DOUGLAS to make such fight as he could in the North, and thus to carry the election into Congress. But they have taken a candidate too thoroughly identified with the Administration to be popular anywhere, and not sufficiently strong at the South to be certain of any Southern State. Their object plainly is to insure the running of their electoral ticket at the North, for the sake of rendering the defeat of DOUGLAS all the more secure. It is not quite certain that they have succeeded even in this. DOUGLAS has a very strong position at the North, made all the stronger by the hatred and persecution of the South; and he may gain as much from this sentiment as he can lose by the hostility of the Administration.
His chances of success, however, are not brilliant. The proceedings at Baltimore,—the factious character of both Conventions, the recklessness of principle, and the selfish devotion to men, which marked their action, have demoralized the party and disgusted the country. There will be at the outset some little enthusiasm at the nomination of DOUGLAS,—but it will not be backed up by any earnest conviction of his superior qualifications for the place, or any confident expectation of his success in reaching it. The action at Baltimore has very greatly increased the chances of LINCOLN’s election, by convincing the country that the Republican Party, while it is no more sectional, is much more compact, and better able to assume the responsibilities of administering the Government than any other.