Douglas promptly called attention to the inconsistency of Davis’s method of forcing his resolutions with one breath and avowing his indifference to a platform with another, especially as Yancey and his own followers had seceded on the platform and not on the man; but he did not press his adversary to the wall, as he might have done, on the insincerity which Davis’s sneer exposed.  He was hampered by his own attitude as a candidate.  Douglas, who had received 150 votes at Charleston, and who expected the whole at Baltimore, could not let his tongue wag as freely as Davis, who had received only one vote and a half at Charleston, and could count on none at Baltimore; else he might have denounced him on the score of patriotism.  For Jefferson Davis, like Yancey, only not so constantly, and like so many others of that secession coterie, blew hot and cold about disunion as occasion demanded.  This same debate of May 17 furnished an instructive example.

  [Sidenote] “Globe,” May 17, 1860, p. 2151.

In the beginning of the day’s discussion Davis indulged in a repetition of the old alarm-cry:  “And so, sir, when we declare our tenacious adherence to the Union, it is the Union of the Constitution.  If the compact between the States is to be trampled into the dust; if anarchy is to be substituted for the usurpation which threatened the Government at an earlier period; if the Union is to become powerless for the purposes for which it was established, and we are vainly to appeal to it for protection—­then, sir, conscious of the rectitude of our course, and self-reliant within ourselves, we look beyond the confines of the Union for the maintenance of our rights.”

  [Sidenote] “Globe,” May 17, 1860, p. 2156.

But after Douglas had made a damaging exposure of Yancey’s disunion intrigues, which had come to light, and had charged their animus on the Charleston seceders, Davis changed his tone.  He said there were not more than seventy-five men in the lodges of the Southern Leagues.  He did not think the Union was in danger from them.  “I have great confidence,” said he, “in the strength of the Union.  Every now and then I hear that it is about to tumble to pieces; that somebody is going to introduce a new plank into the platform, and if he does, the Union must tumble down; until at last I begin to think it is such a rickety old platform that it is impossible to prop it up.  But then I bring my own judgment to bear, instead of relying on witnesses, and I come to the conclusion that the Union is strong and safe—­strong in its power as well as in the affections of the people.”

The debate made it very plain that it was not reconciliation but domination which the South wanted.  So in due time (May 25) the Jefferson Davis resolutions, affirming the “property” theory and the “protection” doctrine, were passed by a large majority of the Democratic Senators.

  [Sidenote] June 18, 1860.