barely lost Pennsylvania and Indiana, and had lost Illinois by a larger majority. They had since then gained all three of those states. They had carried them all in the elections of 1859, together with every other Northern State except California, Oregon, New York and Rhode Island. In Oregon the vote was very close, and New York and Rhode Island had only been carried against them by a fusion of all the opposition forces. Within the year the party had gained in strength and courage, and since there was in 1860 no prospect of complete fusion of all the opposition, its leaders were hopeful of carrying every Northern State.

There was then no permanent building in Chicago large enough to accommodate a Convention of the magnitude of this, with a reasonable number of outsiders, and a temporary structure, called the Republican Wigwam, was erected for the purpose. It was said to be capable of seating 10,000 persons, but notwithstanding its large dimensions had such excellent acoustic properties that an ordinary speaker could be heard throughout the whole vast space. There was nothing to obstruct the vision, so that a person sitting in any part of the auditorium could see every other part of it, and there were separate doors for the ingress and egress of spectators and delegates, thus avoiding confusion. It was crowded with enthusiastic followers of the different candidates, and grave questions were discussed with earnestness, but it was as orderly as any large Convention ever held in the country.

All the Free States were fully represented in the Convention, with delegates from six slave states, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri and Texas. Like the first Republican Convention at Jackson, it brought out, in addition to old party managers, a great many young men, who afterwards became conspicuous in public affairs. Mr. Blaine says that not less than sixty of them, till then unknown outside their districts, were afterwards sent to Congress, while many of them became governors of states, and many others were distinguished as soldiers in the war that followed. Like the Jackson Convention, also, it contained men of formerly very diverse sentiments. Abolitionists, Anti-Slavery Whigs, Conservative Whigs, Free Democrats and a few who, not many years before, were straightout Democrats. The temporary Chairman was David Wilmot, of Proviso fame, formerly an Anti-Slavery Democrat, and the permanent Chairman was George Ashmun, of Massachusetts, a Daniel Webster Whig. Both selections were received with great enthus

iasm.

Among the most distinguished delegates present were John A. Andrew and George S. Boutwell, of Massachusetts; William M. Evarts and Preston King, of New York; Thaddeus Stevens and Andrew H. Reeder, of Pennsylvania; Thomas Corwin and Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio; Norman B. Judd and David Davis, of Illinois; Francis P. Blair, of Missouri, and Carl Schurz, of Wisconsin.

The Michigan delegates were as follows: At Large-Austin Blair, Jackson; Walton W. Murphy, Jonesville; Thomas White Ferry, Grand Haven; J. J. St. Clair, Marquette. By Districts-First, J. G. Peterson, Detroit, Alex. D. Crane, Dexter; Second, Jesse G. Benson, Dowagiac, William L. Stoughton, Sturgis; Third, Francis Quinn, Niles, Erastus Hussy, Battle Creek; Fourth, D. C. Buckland, Pontiac, Michael T. C. Plessner, Saginaw City.

The Michigan appointments in the Convention were: Vice-President, Thomas W. Ferry; Secretary, William L. Stoughton; Committee on Permanent Organization, W. W. Murphy; Credentials, Francis Quinn; Resolutions, Austin Blair. Of these the first afterwards became Member of Congress and United States Senator; the second, Member of Congress; the third, a Foreign Minister, and the last, Governor and Member of Congress.

The first day's session was occupied with routine business, with stirring speeches by the temporary and permanent Chairman. The forenoon of the second day was taken up with consideration of the report of the Committee on Credentials, mainly in reference to the delegations from Maryland, Kentucky, Virginia and Texas.

On the second afternoon the report of the Committee on Resolutions was presented. There was but little discussion upon the report which was generally acceptable, but an amendment offered by Joshua R. Giddings, caused an excited discussion, and an animated scene. Having obtained the floor with great difficulty, Mr. Giddings proposed to add the following after the first resolution: "That we solemnly reassert the self-evident truths that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that governments are instituted among men to secure the enjoyment of such rights." "I offer this," said the old man, in concluding a speech on his amendment, "because our party was formed upon it. It grew upon it. It has existed upon it, and when you leave out this truth you leave out the party.” Notwithstanding this, his amendment was voted down. At the announcement of the vote by which it was lost, Giddings rose and slowly made his

way toward the door. The Convention had voted down the Declaration of Independence; the doctrine of the fathers had been repudiated; and he seceded. But the cause he had left behind him was taken up and championed by George William Curtis, of New York, who succeeded after a little in getting the floor and offering as an amendment the words that finally stood as Section 2 of the resolutions. supporting this amendment, Mr. Curtis said: "I have to ask this Convention whether they are prepared to go upon the record and before the country as voting down the words of the Declaration of

JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS.

In

Independence? I have, sir, in the amendment which I have introduced, quoted simply and only from the Declaration of Independence. Bear in mind that in Philadelphia, in 1856, the Convention of this same great party were not afraid to announce those principles by which alone the Republican party lives, and upon which alone the future of this country in the hands of the Republican party is passing. Now, sir, I ask gentlemen gravely to consider that in the amendment which I

have proposed, I have done nothing that the soundest and safest man in all the land might not do; and I rise simply-for I am now sitting down--I rise simply to ask gentlemen to think well before, upon the free prairies of the West, in the Summer of 1860, they dare to wince and quail before the men who, in 1776, in Philadelphia, in the Arch-Keystone State, so amply, so nobly represented upon this platform today, before they dare to shrink from repeating the words that these great men enunciated." Mr. Curtis' plea

carried the day, and his amendment was adopted. The platform in full was as follows:

RESOLVED, That we, the delegated representatives of the Republican electors of the United States, in Convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we owe to our constituents and our country, unite in the following declarations:

1. That the history of the nation, during the last four years, has fully established the propriety and necessity of the organization and perpetuation of the Republican party, and that the causes which called it into existence are permanent in their nature, and now, more than ever before, demand its peaceful and Constitutional triumph.

2. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution, "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," is essential to the preservation of our republican institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the States and the Union of the States, must and shall be preserved. 3. That to the union of the states this Nation owes its unprece dented increase in population, its surprising development of material resources, its rapid augmentation of wealth, its happiness at home and its honor abroad; and we hold in abhorrence all schemes for disunion, come from whatever source they may; and we congratulate the country that no Republican Member of Congress has uttered or countenanced the threats of disunion so often made by Democratic members, without rebuke and with applause from their political associates; and we denounce those threats of disunion, in case of a popular overthrow of their ascendancy, as denying the vital principles of a free government, and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the imperative duty of an indignant people to rebuke and forever silence.

4. That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends; and we denounce the lawless invasion, by armed force, of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.

5. That the present Democratic Administration has far exceeded our worst apprehensions, in its measureless subserviency to the exactions of a sectional interest, as especially evinced in its desperate exertions to force the infamous Lecompton Constitution upon the protesting people of Kansas; in construing the personal relations between master and servant to involve an unqualified property in persons; in its attempted enforcement, everywhere, on land and sea, through the

intervention of Congress and of the Federal Courts, of the extreme pretensions of a purely local interest, and in its general and unvarying abuse of the power entrusted to it by a confiding people.

6. That the people justly view with alarm the reckless extravagance which pervades every department of the Federal Government; that a return to rigid economy and accountability is indispensable to arrest the systematic plunder of the public treasury by favored partisans; while the recent startling developments of frauds and corruptions at the Federal metropolis show that an entire change of administration is imperatively demanded.

7. That the new dogma, that the Constitution, of its own force, carries slavery into any or all of the United States, is a dangerous political heresy, at variance with the explicit provisions of that instrument itself, with contemporaneous exposition, and with Legislative and Judicial precedent-is revolutionary in its tendency, and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country.

8. That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; that as our republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in our National territory, ordained that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law," it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of Congress, of a Territorial Legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States.

9. That we brand the recent reopening of the African slave trade, under the cover of our National flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, as a crime against humanity and a burning shame to our country and age, and we call upon Congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final suppression of that execrable traffic.

10. That in the recent vetoes, by their Federal governors, of the Acts of the Legislatures of Kansas and Nebraska, prohibiting slavery in those Territories, we find a practical illustration of the boasted Democratic principle of non-intervention and popular sovereignty, embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and a demonstration of the deception and fraud involved therein.

11. That Kansas should, of right, be immediately admitted as a State under the Constitution recently formed and adopted by her people and accepted by the House of Representatives.

12. That while providing for the support of the general government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these imports as to encourage the development of the industrial interest of the whole country; and we commend that policy of National exchanges which secures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerative prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor and enterprise, and to the Nation commercial prosperity and independence.