Page:Journal of Negro History, vol. 7.djvu/305

 ion in the Constitution that precluded the right of the Federal Government to control slavery in the territories.

The crisis between 1850 and 1860 brought Lincoln's ideas before larger groups. Until that year the Democrats had apparently remained united. At the Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina, in April, 1860, there was a division. The Northern Democrats, unable to comply with the demands of the slave power that the convention should adopt a platform requiring Congress to protect slavery in the territories and the Northerners to acknowledge and advocate the moral right of slavery, forced the South to the radical position of withdrawing from the Convention. Since no candidate could then be nominated, the Convention adjourned to Baltimore, in the hope that time would bring about a reconciliation; but in the end the Northern Democrats nominated Douglas, and the Southerners nominated Breckenridge.

The Republican Convention was held in Chicago in May 1860, and there was adopted a moderate platform, with a denial of the right of Congress to interfere with slavery in the States. The Republicans reaffirmed the Declaration of Independence and declared that Congress should prohibit slavery in the territories. They repudiated the Dred Scott decision and advocated a protective system. Their most difficult problem was the selection of a candidate for the presidency. Inasmuch as Seward and Chase had alienated certain elements by their bold advocacy of advanced principles and Lincoln was comparatively unknown, the managers of the party finally accepted him because of his availability. This choice was received with much indignation among the antislavery leaders, for even Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison railed against the nominee and portrayed him as an obscurity.

Lincoln's election forced slavery into the foreground.