Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/77

 statesman, and Abraham Lincoln, who had recently won national fame in a series of political debates with Stephen A. Douglas. The platform was an able document, defining the principles of the party of freedom in clear and vigorous terms which aroused great enthusiasm throughout the country. The nomination of Abraham Lincoln, a typical representative of the West, was received with general rejoicing in the Mississippi Valley. The defeat of Seward was a sore disappointment to the radical wing of the party which gave Lincoln, however, a unanimous and loyal support.

The Democratic National Convention, which had been held at Charleston, on the 23d of April, had divided into two factions on the issues relating to slavery. Delegates from the extreme Southern States demanded that the platform declare that neither Congress nor territorial legislatures had power to abolish slavery in the Territories, nor prohibit the introduction of slaves therein, nor impair the right of property in slaves by legislation. Ben. M. Samuels, of Iowa, presented a minority report indorsing the Democratic platform of 1856 on the subject of slavery. The minority report was adopted by a vote of one hundred an sixty-five to one hundred and thirty-eight, whereupon the delegates from Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Texas, and a portion of the delegates from Louisiana, South Carolina, Arkansas, North Carolina, Delaware and Georgia, withdrew from the convention. After a session of ten days the convention adjourned to meet at Baltimore on the 18th of June. When it reassembled a portion of the delegates seceded, and those remaining nominated Stephen A. Douglas for President and H. V. Johnson for Vice-President. The seceders held a convention, nominating John C. Breckinridge for President and Joseph Lane for Vice-President. Another national Convention was held at Baltimore, May 9th, by delegates from