“old fogies” in 1852 had defeated Buchanan and nominated Pierce; now, by the turn of political fortune, Buchanan’s friends were able to wipe out the double score by defeating both Pierce and Douglas.  Most of the Southern delegates seem to have been guided by the mere thought of present utility; they voted to renominate Pierce because of his subservient Kansas policy, forgetting that Douglas had not only begun it, but was their strongest ally to continue it.  When after a day of fruitless balloting they changed their votes to Douglas, Buchanan, the so-called “old fogy,” just returned from the English mission, and therefore not handicapped by personal jealousies and heart-burnings, had secured the firm adhesion of a decided majority mainly from the North.[3]

The “two-thirds rule” was not yet fulfilled, but at this juncture the friends of Pierce and Douglas yielded to the inevitable, and withdrew their favorites in the interest of “harmony.”  On the seventeenth ballot, therefore, and the fifth day of the convention, James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, became the unanimous nominee of the Democratic party for President, and John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for Vice-President.

The famous “Cincinnati platform” holds a conspicuous place in party literature for length, for vigor of language, for variety of topics, for boldness of declaration; and yet, strange to say, its chief merit and utility lay in the skillful concealment of its central thought and purpose.  About one-fourth of its great length is devoted to what to the eye looks like a somewhat elaborate exposition of the doctrines of the party on the slavery question.  Eliminate the verbiage and there only remains an indorsement of the “principles contained in the organic laws establishing the Territory of Kansas and Nebraska” (non-interference by Congress with slavery in State and Territory, or in the District of Columbia); and the practical application of “the principles” is thus further defined:  “Resolved, That we recognize the right of the people of all the Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly expressed will of a majority of actual residents, and whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a constitution with or without domestic slavery, and be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with the other States.”

We have already seen how deliberately the spirit and letter of “the principle” was violated by the Democratic National Administration of President Pierce, and by nearly all the Democratic Senators and Representatives in Congress; and we shall see how the more explicit resolution was again even more flagrantly violated by the Democratic National Administration and party under President Buchanan.