The people's choice : from Washington to Harding; a study in democracy by Agar Herbert 1897-1980

Author:Agar, Herbert, 1897-1980
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Presidents, Democracy
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin company
Published: 1933-03-28T16:00:00+00:00

party, the Northern Democrats rallying about Senator Douglas. If the party split in two, there would be an end of Southern domination at Washington, and hence, presumably, an end of the Union, for the South was obviously preparing to secede if a so-called Black Republican should be elected. Nevertheless, there seemed no candidate on whom the party could agree. Buchanan, who in any case was too weak for such an emergency, refused to stand again. He favoured Breckinridge of Kentucky, who had been Vice-President during Buchanan’s term; but Breckinridge was unacceptable to the Northerners, and Douglas had lost all hold over the South. His Kansas-Nebraska Bill had given him a brief popularity in that section — a popularity which died when he took the stand that in spite of the Dred Scott decision the settlers in a Territory had it in their power to exclude slavery, if they chose.... In the end, the Democratic Party split in two, each section holding its own convention. Douglas was nominated by the Northerners, Breckinridge by the Southerners. Yancey of Alabama had his way at last, and in a great speech he explained to the South what it should have seen ten years before: that, having become a minority with a special interest to be protected, the choice was to surrender or to secede.

The Republican Convention, in i860, marked the capture of the new Party by the Hamiltonians. The Party continued to oppose the extension of slavery into the Territories, but it combined this doctrine with the tariff and banking programme that had for so long been dear to the business interests, and with the recommendation of internal improvements in the form of Government aid for the Pacific Railway. Finally, the Republicans ensured victory by offering to the West the long-withheld bribe of free land.

In the jockeying for position that had been going on between North and South throughout the last generation, it was clearly seen that either section could buy the support of the West by the free distribution of public land. Since the time of John Q. Adams, no leader had refrained from this distribution for high-minded motives. The South had refrained because it feared the growth of

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.