These words brought Senator Pugh to his feet.  Wrought to a dangerous pitch of excitement, he thanked God that a bold and honest man from the South had at last spoken, and had told the whole of the Southern demands.  The South demanded now nothing less than that Northern Democrats should declare slavery to be right.  “Gentlemen of the South,” he exclaimed, “you mistake us—­you mistake us—­we will not do it."[830] The convention adjourned before Pugh had finished; but in the evening he told the Southern delegates plainly that Northern Democrats were not children at the bidding of the South.  If the gentlemen from the South could stay only on the terms they proposed, they must go.  For once the hall was awed into quiet, for Senator Pugh stood close to Douglas and the fate of the party hung in the balance.[831]

Sunday intervened, but the situation remained unchanged.  Gloom settled down upon the further deliberations of the convention.  On Monday, the minority report (the Douglas platform) was adopted by a vote of 165 to 138.  Thereupon the chairman of the Alabama delegation protested and announced the formal withdrawal of his State from the convention.  The crisis had arrived.  Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas followed in succession, with valedictories which seemed directed less to the convention than to the Union.  Indeed, more than one face blanched at the probable significance of this secession.  Southerners of the Yancey following, however, were jubilant and had much to say about an independent Southern Republic.[832]

On the following day, what Yancey scornfully dubbed the “Rump Convention,” proceeded to ballot, having first voted that two-thirds of the full vote of the convention should be necessary to nominate.  On the first ballot, Douglas received 145-1/2, Hunter of Virginia 42, Guthrie of Kentucky 35-1/2; and the remaining thirty were divided among several candidates.  As 202 votes were necessary for a choice, the hopelessness of the outlook was apparent to all.  Nevertheless, the balloting continued, the vote of Douglas increasing on four ballots to 152-1/2.  After the thirty-sixth ballot, he failed to command more than 151-1/2.  In all, fifty-seven ballots were taken.[833] On the tenth day of the convention, it was voted to adjourn to meet at Baltimore, on the 18th of June.

The followers of Douglas left Charleston with wrath in their hearts.  Chagrin and disappointment alternated with bitterness and resentment toward their Southern brethren.  Moreover, contact with the South, so far from having lessened their latent distrust of its culture and institutions, had widened the gulf between the sections.  Such speeches as that of Goulden of Georgia, who had boldly advocated the re-opening of the African slave-trade, saying coarsely that “the African slave-trade man is the Union man—­the Christian man,” caused a certain ethical revolt in the feelings of men, hitherto not particularly susceptible to moral appeals on the slavery question.[834] Added to all these cumulative grievances was the uncomfortable probability, that the next President was about to be nominated in the Republican convention at Chicago.