Walker had succeeded in having
his minister acknowledged by the Democratic Administration, and
in obtaining the endorsement of a great Democratic meeting which
was held in New York. It looked, therefore, as if the party of
political evasion had an anchor to windward, and that, in the
event of their losing in Kansas, they intended to placate their
Southern wing by the annexation of Nicaragua.
Here, indeed, was a stronger political tempest than Douglas,
weatherwise though he was, had foreseen. How was political
evasion to brave it? With a courage quite equal to the boldness
of the Republicans, the Democrats took another tack and steered
for less troubled waters. Their convention at Cincinnati was
temperate and discreet in all its expressions, and for President
it nominated a Northerner, James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, a man
who was wholly dissociated in the public mind from the struggle
over Kansas.
The Democratic party leaders knew that they already had two
strong groups of supporters. Whatever they did, the South would
have to go along with them, in its reaction against the furious
sectionalism of the Republicans. Besides the Southern support,
the Democrats counted upon the aid of the professional
politicians--those men who considered politics rather as a
fascinating game than as serious and difficult work based upon
principle.
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