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The southern delegates seceded from the Democratic
convention, and nominated Breckenridge, on a platform demanding
congressional protection of slavery in the Territories. The remainder of
the Democratic convention nominated Douglas, with a declaration of its
willingness to submit to the decision of the Supreme Court on questions
of constitutional law. The remnants of the former Whig and American
parties, under the name of the Constitutional Union party, nominated
Bell without any declaration of principles. Lincoln received a majority
of the electoral votes, and became President. His popular vote was a
plurality.
Seward's address on the "Irrepressible Conflict," which closes this
volume, is representative of the division between the two sections, as
it stood just before the actual shock of conflict. Labor systems are
delicate things; and that which the South had adopted, of enslaving the
laboring class, was one whose influence could not help being universal
and aggressive.


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