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of the public service, charging officers and men to be ready at their several posts of duty to aid in catching fugitives, which excited much indignation among the people.

The second session of the Thirty-second Congress was not important in any action upon the slavery question. Mr. Fillmore communicated a message to the Senate devoted to the fugitive slave law, which grew out of the case of Shadrach; there were a great many petitions presented for the repeal of that law, and some discussion upon them, but no action; and a resolution proposing an inquiry into the propriety of paying the Spanish claimants in the case of the Amistad slave-ship, was introduced by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, and opposed by Mr. Chase. These, and some discussion upon a proposal of Mr. Clay to make more effectual provision for the suppression of the African slave-trade, constituted about the sum total of the slavery agitation during the session.

The compromise measures had been supported by almost the entire body of the Democratic party in Congress, though opposed by a majority of the Ohio representatives, and had been almost universally denounced by the Democratic press of that State. For a time it seemed possible that they might be repudiated by the Northern Democrats.

But when the National Convention of the party met on the 1st of June, 1852, for the nomination of candidates for President and Vice-President, it became speedily apparent that no such hope was to be realized. The convention strongly denounced any efforts of the abolitionists, or of others, to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps on the subject, as calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences. It declared that the Democratic party would abide by and adhere to a faithful execution of the acts known as the compromise measures of 1850-including the fugitive slave act; which act "being designed to carry out an express provision of the Constitution, cannot, with fidelity thereto, be repealed, nor so changed as to destroy or impair its efficiency." It was solemnly declared, finally, "that the Democratic party will resist all attempts at renewing in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color it may be made."

The nominations of this convention were-for President, Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire;. for Vice-President, William R. King, of Alabama.

A few days later on the 16th of June'-the Whigs also met in national council. Upon the slavery question they took substantially the same ground as, if not even stronger and more emphatic than, the Democracy. They resolved that "the series of acts known as the compromise measures of 1850-the act known as the fugitive slave law included—are received and acquiesced in by the Whig party of the United States as a settlement, in principle and substance, of the dangerous and exciting questions which they embrace; and, so far as they are concerned, we will maintain them and insist on their strict enforcement, until time and experience shall demonstrate the necessity of further legislation to guard against the evasion of the laws on the one hand, and the abuse of their powers on the other-not impairing their present efficiency; and we deprecate all further agitation of the question thus settled, as dangerous to our peace, and will discountenance all efforts to continue or renew such agitation whenever, wherever or however the attempt may be made; and we will maintain this system as essential to the nationality of the Whig party and the integrity of the Union."

General Winfield Scott was nominated for President and William A. Graham, of North Carolina, for Vice-President.

The candidates of both parties professed prompt and zealous adhesion to the platforms presented for their acceptance; and one of them became an itinerant solicitor, in his own behalf and that of the party whose standard-bearer he was, for the popular suffrages.

Mr. Chase interpreted these platforms and nominations to mean resistance not to pro-slavery, but to antislavery agitation. He did not long hesitate as to the course he ought to pursue. He addressed a letter to Benjamin F. Butler, of New York, one of his associates in the great work of the Buffalo Convention, declaring his determination to adhere to the principles announced there, and to act with the only party faithful to those principles; that is, with the Independent Democracy, who had continued to maintain their organization, and had called a National Convention 'Both the Democratic and Whig Conventions were held in Baltimore.

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to meet at Pittsburg on the 11th of August-and he earnestly urged Mr. Butler, and through Mr. Butler those Democrats who had acted with him at Buffalo, to maintain the ground they had there taken.

"I shall ever lament," says Mr. Chase, in one of the Trowbridge letters, "that this appeal was not heeded. The party of freedom had given in 1840, while unorganized, one vote in every three hundred and fifty of the votes cast in the United States. In 1844, it had given one vote in every forty-four, and in 1848, it had given one vote in ten and almost one in nine. This, it must be remembered, was the proportion in the free States of the whole vote of the United States. The proportion in the free States, considered by themselves, must of course have been much larger. It cannot be doubted, I think, that had the New York Democracy in 1852 adhered to the principles avowed in 1848, and refused to support the Baltimore nominations upon a platform repugnant to the sentiments and convictions of a large majority of the Northern people, a vote would have been given to the nominees of the Independent Democracy which, if not suf ficient to elect its candidates, would have insured the election of General Scott, and the consequent union of nearly the whole Democratic party, in the course of the following year, upon the principles of the Independent Democracy. The Democracy of the Union-united upon those principles-would have been invincible; and slavery, excluded from the Territories, would have been ameliorated, diminished, and finally abolished by State action. The rebellion, in all probability, would have been avoided, and the Union would have been preserved unbroken, and preserved not for slavery but for freedom. I took great pains to explain these views to many, and a good deal of apprehension was manifested by certain slave-State Senators lest they should be adopted."

The Free-Soilers met at Pittsburg, and nominated for President John P. Hale and for Vice-President George W. Julian. They adopted a platform of unequivocal hostility to slavery extension, in favor of slavery restriction, and in emphatic denunciation of the fugitive slave law. They declared the true "mission of American Democracy to be, to maintain the liberties of the people, the sovereignty of the States, and the perpetuity of the

Union, by the impartial application to public affairs, without sectional discrimination, of the fundamental principles of equal rights, strict justice and economical administration. That to the importunate and persevering demands of the slave-power for more slave States, new slave Territories, and the nationalization of slavery, our distinct and final answer is no more slave States, no more slave Territory, no nationalized slavery, and no national legislation for the extradition of slaves." The fugitive slave act was denounced as repugnant to the Constitution, to the principles of the common law, to the spirit of Christianity, and to the sentiments of the civilized world. They demanded its immediate and unconditional repeal. They declared the doctrine that any human law is a finality and not subject to modification or repeal, as not in accordance with the creed of the founders of the government and dangerous to the liberties of the people. They denounced the payment of ten millions to Texas; and declared that there could be no permanent settlement of the slavery question, except in the practical recognition of the truth that slavery was sectional and freedom national, by the total separation of the Federal Government from slavery, and the exercise of its legitimate and constitutional influence on the side of freedom, and by leaving to the States the whole subject of slavery, including the extradition of fugitives from service.

Upon these views of the question of slavery, the free Democracy appealed to the people of the country for support.

The New York Democrats did not respond either to the personal appeal of Mr. Chase or to the united voice of the Pittsburg Convention, but almost unanimously went to the support of General Pierce, who was elected of course. Their defection, and that of those influenced by their example in other States, reduced the vote of the Independent Democrats from 291,678 in 1848 to 157,296 in 1852; or about one in twenty of the whole votes cast. Near three-fourths of the entire defection was in New York. In Ohio the vote for Hale in 1852 was about four thousand less than for Van Buren in 1848; Van Buren's vote having been 35,354; Hale's was 31,682, and the Old-line Democracy carried the State.

The agreement of the two old parties upon substantially the same platform, and the election of General Pierce, devolved up

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on the Democratic party the whole responsibility of that platform. The reorganization of parties became inevitable, and as the platform of the Independent Democrats alone represented antagonism to the invasions of slavery, it became certain also that the principles of that party must form the basis of opposition to the Administration, which in the logic of events would inevitably be driven into new concessions to the slave-power.