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 152 Southern Historical Society Papers.

the strongest, numerically, had not only dominated the party, but had ostracised the adherents of Calhoun, without resorting to a public excommunication of them. In 1832, Mr. Yancey, scarcely more than adolescent, had edited a Jackson newspaper in South Carolina and manfully opposed the nullification doctrines of Calhoun and Hayne, although he never wavered in his adherence to the right of a State to secede from the Union. When he removed to Alabama, he became identified in his new home with the Calhoun wing of the Democracy, many of the members of which were originally from South Carolina, and had been there personally known to him.

In 1848, Mr. Yancey was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention at Baltimore, and strongly denounced the sentiments and views of General Cass's "Nicholson letter," as well as the platform adopted by the Convention, and endeavored to substitute therefor some resolutions draughted by him, and adopted by the State Demo- cratic Convention of Alabama in the January previous to the meeting of the Baltimore Convention. He refused to support General Cass for the Presidency, and gave his support to George M. Troup, of Georgia, and John A. Quitman, of Mississippi, who had been nomi- nated by the more ultra Southern Democrats. This line of conduct on the part of Mr. Yancey, naturally gave great offence to the Jack- son Democrats, and led to his abstaining from all participation in Democratic primaries and conventions for a considerable time, though he declined to unite with the Whig party. In 1856, he warmly sup- ported Mr. Buchanan as Democratic elector for the State at large, canvassed the State, making a speech in every county, in conse- quence of which he regained his standing in the Democratic party. In 1858, Mr. Yancey commenced, with insistence, the war on the territorial views avowed by Judge Stephen A. Douglass, and de- manded that so long as a territory remained in a state of pupilage, Congress should itself pass all laws necessary for the protection of slavery in such territory, in case the territorial legislature failed to do so. He contended that non -action on the part of the territorial legislature, on the subject of slavery would amount to leaving it in an unprotected condition, which would, practically, exclude it from the new territories then opening up. Mr. Yancey proclaimed him- self to be in favor of re-opening the African slave trade, with the view of so cheapening the price of slaves as that every white man in the South could purchase one or more slaves, at an insignificant cost,