Meanwhile, the Regular Democratic National Convention had proceeded to
ballot for President--after adopting the two-thirds rule. Thirty-seven
ballots having been cast, that for Stephen A. Douglas being, on the
thirty-seventh, 151, the Convention, on the 3d of May, adjourned to meet
again at Baltimore, June 18th.
After re-assembling, and settling contested election cases, the
delegates (in whole or in part) from Virginia, North Carolina,
Tennessee, California, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Massachusetts,
withdrew from the Convention, the latter upon the ground mainly that
there had been "a withdrawal, in part, of a majority of the States,"
while Butler, who had voted steadily for Jefferson Davis throughout all
the balloting at Charleston, gave as an additional ground personal to
himself, that "I will not sit in a convention where the African Slave
Trade--which is piracy by the laws of my Country--is approvingly
advocated"--referring thereby to a speech, that had been much applauded
by the Convention at Charleston, made by a Georgia delegate (Gaulden),
in which that delegate had said: "I would ask my friends of the South to
come up in a proper spirit; ask our Northern friends to give us all our
rights, and take off the ruthless restrictions which cut off the supply
of Slaves from foreign lands.
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