Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/331

Rh the platform offensively called &quot;the twin relics of barbarism polygamy and slavery. The inventors of this sharp-pointed and irritating thrust at the South did not consider that these twins were both the progeny of Northern loins. It is therefore fair to make the historic note that one of these odious twins was conceived in the iniquity of the African slave trade, in whose generating the South did not share, and that the other offspring of barbarism was born in social conditions certainly not common in the North but existing wholly outside the Southern States. The platform thus justly condemned the men who originated the twin evils, and if it had denounced the slave trade itself together with polygamy, the applause of the South would have followed. Slavery was the unfortunate relict of the horrible trade in human flesh which, for the sake of gain, deprived the helpless African of his freedom. (American Conflict, p. 255.)

The American party, composed largely of patriotic Whigs who would not yield to the sectional spirit nor ally themselves with their old Democratic antagonist, nominated Fillmore. In the ballot Fillmore was supported by 886,000 voters, of whom about 500,000 were from the South, and one Southern State Maryland honored him with its electoral vote, and 114 electoral votes from eleven States. Buchanan was elected by 1,851,000 popular votes, 174 electoral votes, and the suffrage of nineteen States. The result astonished the Democrats, dissolved the American party, encouraged the sectional movement, and dismayed the South. Ten States which Pierce had earned in 1852 were lost. New York and Ohio voted for Fremont, while Pennsylvania was barely saved. &quot;All New England was consolidated. More than a million and a quarter of Northern citizens had cast their votes deliberately for the sectional candidates of a sectional party on a sectional issue, and against a Northern statesman of exalted character, the nominee of a national party on a national plattorm. The Southern