Augusta Daily Chronicle and Sentinel, May 24, 1860

There was a wailing, a cry of anguish, startling the night, and the doctors were called. When the great party died at Charleston beyond hope of resurrection, the doctors in Washington city began the work to galvanize the body into new life. They labored night and day, for many days and nights together, and reports flew thick and fast all over the land, of the remarkable efforts they were making, and the great success which would probably crown their labors. Day after day the Telegraph informed us of the all-healing address which was to be issued from headquarters to call the "wandering sinners home." The worthies labored sorely, and after great travail we have at last The Address. A miserable, abortive failure it is, and its parents will scarcely own it. It fell still-born everywhere, and the patient, long-suffering public acknowledges itself sold.

This address, which we shall preserve for our curiosity shop, after all the drumming and persuasion that could be brought to bear, has received the signatures of eighteen members and Senators, and of one myth J. R. Morrison. It calls upon the seceding delegates, to go back to the Baltimore Convention, to make one more effort to obtain the right platform, and holds out a delusive hope that such may be obtained. These immortal signers were perhaps influenced by a sincere desire to restore harmony, and to revivify the dead body—perhaps not. We think it more probable that they considered it good policy to pretend such a thing, for they ought to know that it can never be accomplished. What these gentlemen would consider a good platform we do not positively know, and very likely they could not agree themselves. It is probable that the two Senators from Virginia, the two from Arkansas, Senator SLIDELL, Senator TOOMBS, and Representatives GARNETT, REAGAN, LOVE and JONES, would accept the New York-Tennessee resolution—the remaining signers would possibly insist upon the Charleston majority platform.

There is no possible chance for re-union and harmony as proposed, and doubtless many of those who signed the address felt satisfied of the fact. If the seceding delegates were not actuated by a determination to sustain sound principles, which we will not charge, they know that they have ruined themselves if they do not now insist upon them. But in the first place, many of the seceding delegates will not go back to Baltimore, upon any sort of Congressional assurances, because they feel it would be a humiliation, because they believe the door is closed, and there is no chance to re-open the platform question so as to be allowed to get their principles again before the Convention. In the next place, if willing to go back, it is very doubtful whether the Convention would allow them, for it requested the States to supply vacancies on account of this secession, and the train—bands of DOUGLAS are already at work in the seceding States, under orders from the "Little Squatter," to fill these vacancies with his tools. But they will have to send bogus delegates from Georgia, and the other seceding States, for it is now reduced to a dead certainty that the Milledgeville Convention will send no DOUGLAS delegate to Baltimore. His adherents will have to get up a Rump Convention if they send any delegates from Georgia.

Admitting, however, that the seceding delegates return, that they are received, and that the platform question is reconsidered, which, according to parliamentary law, cannot be done, what change is to be made in the Charleston platform? Suppose the South accept the New York resolution, that is not acceptable to Mr. DOUGLAS and Mr. STEPHENS; and the Constitutionalist says:

Let none deceive themselves with the hope of concession from the North, for the New York resolutions, which the Chairman of the Georgia delegation refers to, were not the voice of the State delegation, and the Virginia ultimatum was the Tennessee resolution which was let die unnoticed. We think that compromise and argument was exhausted at Charleston.

So if the South should consent to accept the resolution the Douglasites will not give her, though they might very well afford to do it for the sake of the nominee; because that resolution does not meet the issue, and even under it, there still remains the position of judge DOUGLAS, and of Mr. STEPHENS too, that slavery is solely dependent upon the local law, and that simple non-action on the part of the Territories would legally free the slave, because he is free everywhere except where the law enslaves him. But Judge DOUGLAS, who has declared "the people of a Territory, while in a territorial condition, have the inherent power and right, through their Legislature, to exclude slavery by positive enactment," has, last week in the Senate, made his declaration of war against the South and seceders, holding that he and his positions have been endorsed by a majority of the Charleston Convention, and he never will surrender, and he is backed up by many powerful names in Georgia and the South, including JOHNSON,'[1] STEPHENS, FORSYTH, CLINGMAN[2] & CO.

There then seems little hope of even the passage of the New York resolution; but, were it passed, will the seceding delegates accept it? We believe some few of them would, but as it is manifestly a cheat and a humbug and has been denounced as such by the Richmond Enquirer, the Charleston Mercury, Mr. YANCEY and others, it will not be accepted if tendered. A majority of the Constitutional Democracy will insist on the majority platform, and they will be backed, before the adjourned Convention meets, by the substantial endorsement, by vote under oath, of all the Democratic Senators save two or three, or four at most. Can the majority platform be passed at Baltimore? The signers of the address hold out a hope of that kind, on the ground that there was a majority of delegates in the Charleston Convention for it, (or at least for something better suited to this market than the minority platform,) if they had only been allowed to vote per capita. Well, how is this to be remedied at Baltimore? If the seceding delegates return they will stand as before, and the rule of the Convention will remain as before, which provides only that the vote of those States be cast as a unit, whose State Convention instructed, requested, or provided for such action. Can the rule be reversed, and every delegate allowed to cast his vote as he pleases? Not without the consent of DOUGLAS and his friends. There were only two States (Georgia and New Jersey,) which had any difficulty at Charleston on this point. New Jersey was allowed by the Convention to divide her vote—so a change of the rule will not affect her. Pennsylvania was not trammeled at all. The DOUGLAS men would vote for Georgia to divide her vote, but that, with the same delegates, only makes against the majority platform. The difficulty then will be only in New York and Indiana, and is anybody so superlatively foolish as to suppose that the DOUGLAS men (in a clear majority) will rescind the rule, even if it could be reached by parliamentary usage, in face of the declaration that a part of the New York delegates will abandon him if they can, but who are now bound to him by the unit rule?

Suppose, although it is not a supposable case, that the majority platform be adopted at Baltimore, what then? Why a secession of the North instead of the South; because the DOUGLAS men never will surrender, and Senator PUGH has lately said in his place that "he did not think a single delegate from Ohio, or even a Democrat in the State, would have voted for the majority platform."[3] This is the spirit of the Squatter Sovereignty men of the North.So then it is an utterly futile and hopeless task to re-organize, reunite and harmonize the disintegrated Democratic party, unless this is to be done by a total abandonment of all principle, for the sake of plunder, and that, under existing circumstances must insure a Waterloo defeat. No, sensible people might as well make up their minds to the fact that the Democratic party is dissolved forever, that new organizations must take place, and that henceforth, till the final decisive battle, there are three great parties in the country. Those who agree in principle, must and will unite in effective organization. The Republicans, at least during this campaign, maintaining their prohibitory dogma and their revolutionary tendencies, will fight a hard battle. Those who maintain the dangerous heresy, call it whatsoever specious name you will—non-intervention, Squatter Sovereignty, or Popular Sovereignty—that the people of the organized Territories are sovereign to exclude slavery, and by non-action, unfriendly legislation, or positive Territorial statute, to destroy or impair the rights of the Southern emigrant in and to his lawful property, and that the Federal Government has no power to protect the citizen against such illegal confiscation, will rally to the call of the Little Giant of the Northwest. And those who oppose both these organizations, their dogmas, their aims and tendencies, and who seek to perpetuate the union of these States by maintaining the rights of each sovereignty, and the equality of all citizens, will constitute the great Constitutional party of the country.The first is entirely a sectional organization, having scarcely a name South of Mason & Dixon's line, and its leading dogma can never again be law, until the "final analysis of Liberty" be reached. The second is also a sectional organization, having the same aims as the first, and what is alarming, having an organization powerful in character and ability, but not numerically strong, in our own midst. Both are public enemies, and their existence is a standing threat against the peace of the country, the constitutional rights of a minority, and the perpetuity of the government itself. They must be defeated; and first, the war must commence against those who are among us and of us. Then unfurl our banner, stand firmly by the right and the Constitution, yield not an inch, crush out the advocates of inequality at home, and call upon the true, the faithful, the constitutional, the fraternal everywhere, to stand with us by the written law, and we must eventually prevail.

1. Herschel v. Johnson of Georgia.

2. Thomas L. Clingman, Non-Interventionist Senator from North Carolina, 1847–1861.

3. Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 1 Sess., III, 1968.