The Southern delegates had come to the convention in a truculent spirit,--as men who felt that they were enduring wrongs which must then and there be righted.

They had a grievance for which they demanded redress, as a preliminary step to further conference.

They wanted no evasion, they would accept no delay.
The Northern delegates begged for the nomination of Douglas as the certain method of defeating the Republicans, and asked that they might not be borne down by a platform which they could not carry in the North.

The Southern delegates demanded a platform which should embody the Constitutional rights of the slave-holder, and they would not qualify or conceal their requirements.

If the North would sustain those rights, all would be well.