The platform devised by the Philadelphia Convention was unusually bold in its affirmations, and most happy in its phraseology.  Not only did it “deny the authority of Congress, or of a territorial legislature, of any individual or association of individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States”; it further “Resolved, That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the Territories of the United States for their government, and that in the exercise of this power it is both the right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism—­polygamy and slavery.”  At Buchanan, recently nominated by the Democratic National Convention in Cincinnati, it aimed a barbed shaft:  “Resolved, That the highwayman’s plea that ‘might makes right,’ embodied in the Ostend circular, was in every respect unworthy of American diplomacy, and would bring shame and dishonor upon any government or people that gave it their sanction.”  It demanded the maintenance of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, of the Federal Constitution, of the rights of the States, and the union of the States.  It favored a Pacific railroad, congressional appropriations for national rivers and harbors; it affirmed liberty of conscience and equality of rights; it arraigned the policy of the Administration; demanded the immediate admission of Kansas as a State, and invited “the affiliation and cooeperation of men of all parties, however differing from them in other respects, in support of the principles declared.”

The nominees and platform of the Philadelphia Convention were accepted by the opposition voters of the free-States with an alacrity and an enthusiasm beyond the calculation of even the most sanguine; and in November a vote was recorded in their support which, though then unsuccessful, laid the secure foundation of an early victory, and permanently established a great party destined to carry the country through trials and vicissitudes equal in magnitude and results to any which the world had hitherto witnessed.

In that year none of the presidential honors were reserved for the State of Illinois.  While Lincoln thus narrowly missed a nomination for the second place on the Republican ticket, his fellow-citizen and competitor, Douglas, failed equally to obtain the nomination he so much coveted as the candidate of the Democratic party.  The Democratic National Convention had met at Cincinnati on the 2d day of June, 1856.  If Douglas flattered himself that such eminent services as he had rendered the South would find this reward, his disappointment must have been severe.  While the benefits he had conferred were lightly estimated or totally forgotten, former injuries inflicted in his name were keenly remembered and resented.  But three prominent candidates, Buchanan, Pierce, and Douglas, were urged upon the convention.  The indiscreet crusade of Douglas’s friends against