DIVISION OF DEMOCRATIC PARTY



on October 24. Prince Kung, in the presence of the Manchu
mandarins, affixed the Emperor's seal to the treaty, under
a special imperial edict, forwarded from Jehol. This done,
Lord Elgin transferred to his brother, Frederick Bruce, the
charge of British interests in China as Resident Minister at
Pekin, in company with a newly appointed Ambassador from
France. The allied troops left Pekin on November 9, and
the greater part of the expedition returned to India and Eu-
rope just before the cold weather set in. In the absence of
the Emperor, Prince Kung took charge of affairs in China.
    In North America, after the failure of the efforts to make
Kansas a slave State, it had become plain that the South
could not hope to keep its equality of representation in the
Senate without reversing what appeared to be the settled
popular opinion concerning the status of the Northern Ter-
ritories. Resolutions to this general effect wvere moved by
Jefferson Davis early in February, 1860, and were passed
by the Senate. The House, however, would not pass them.
   This was the ultimatum presented to the Democratic
Party, and, in fact, to the North, at the Democratic
National Convention which assembled on April 23 at
Charleston, South Carolina. The spokesman of the Cot-
ton States at that convention was William L. Yancey of
Alabama, whose impetuous oratory had given him a place
among the extreme men of the South, comparable to Garrison
and Wendell Phillips among the extreme anti-slavery men in
the North. The platform committee voted 17 to 16 in favor
of declaring that the Constitution allowed, and that Congress
should aphold, the holding of slaves in any Territory. The
minority report, while upholding the Fugitive Slave Act, de-
ferred on tie constitutionality of slavery to the decisions of
the Supreme Court. The minority report was adopted by a
small majority of the Convention. Practically all the dele-
gates from the Cotton States withdrew. The convention ad-
                          852



1860