The Leadership of Lincoln
logical and real leader of the party. There was not one of the component elements of the party, not yet fully fused together, to which he would not be acceptable.
The Democrats were, thanks to Lincoln's strategy, hopelessly divided. There were the administration Democrats, comprising practically all the voters in the South and many in the North, and all the office-holders everywhere. There were the Douglas or "Popular Sovereignty" Democrats, forming the vast bulk of the party in New England, the great majority in New York and the West and a large part in Pennsylvania. The latter were determined to nominate Douglas and the former were equally determined not to support him. As for the remnants of the Whig and American parties they dropped their old names and united under the title of Constitutional Union party, a party of unquestionable patriotism and fine intellectual quality but in a hopeless minority.
The first nominating convention that year was the Democratic at Charleston, S. C. on April 23d. Douglas was the leading candidate but could not get the needed two-thirds vote for nomination and after many fruitless ballots the convention adjourned to meet again at Baltimore on June 18th. Meanwhile a large number of the southern delegates opposed to Douglas seceded, organized a rival convention and adjourned to meet at Richmond, Va. on June 11th. When the convention reassembled at Baltimore Douglas was eventually nominated. But there was another secession of administration Democrats who organized a rival convention and nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for President. The other seceding convention at Richmond
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