He was of the spirit of Douglas. He was an expansionist. He had gone
into California in 1845, and raised the American flag on a mountain
overlooking Monterey. He had helped later to conquer California. He had
for various audacious and disobedient acts been tried and
court-martialed, and dismissed from military service. President Polk had
approved the verdict, but remitted the penalty. Then he had resigned.
Now he was the object of the highest honor of an American convention. He
was made the spokesman for a platform which denounced the invasion of
Kansas by an armed force in the interests of slavery. He had gone into
California for the slavocracy which engineered the Mexican War, as New
England contended. Now he was at the head of the party waging war upon
that slavocracy. A strange people, these Americans!
Douglas had said that he did not want the office of President. Perhaps
that was an exhibition of political coyness, for he was in the lists
just the same! He had 33 votes on the first ballot, of which only 14
came from the South. President Pierce, who was running again, met a
wavering fortune. On the sixteenth ballot he had not a vote. Douglas had
121 votes; a certain Mr. Buchanan had 168. On the seventeenth ballot
this Mr. Buchanan was nominated. Who was this Mr. Buchanan?
He had been Secretary of State under Polk, had helped to secure the
Texan territory.
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