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DAVID WILMOT AT THE TIME OF HIS SERVICE IN THE SENATE

From a photograph

of political success." Two months later, when Cameron had been reinvited and was safely installed in Lincoln's Cabinet, Wilmot was elected by more than a three-fourths majority to fill the vacant chair thus left in the United States Senate.

The legislature's choice of Judge Wilmot to fill Cameron's unexpired term (two years) was received by Horace Greeley with a moderated approval, tinctured perhaps a little more strongly by the sense of recent differences than by memory of earlier agreements. March 14, 1861, the Tribune reported the results of the caucus, with the observation that "election, we presume, will follow of course," and added:

The nomination of Judge Wilmot will be received with delight by many. For years, having been chosen to a judgeship, he has been measurably out of the political arena, but he is remembered by the Republicans as the modern author, or reviver, of the Jeffersonian Proviso respecting Slavery in territories. Hunkerism insisted on his retirement from the House years ago; we thank it, for this gave us Galusha A. Grow in his stead; and now Mr. Wilmot returns to Congress to fill a higher post and (we trust) pursue a course of wider usefulness than before. We have differed with him recently on some points—perhaps through misapprehension on our part-but we hail with gladness his return to Congress and thus to political life.

The Harrisburg Telegraph, a leading paper of the State capital, was less restrained in its approval. March 15, 1861, it said:

We have the proud satisfaction to-day to announce the election of Hon. David Wilmot as United States Senator, to supply the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Gen. Cameron. Mr. Wilmot left the Democratic party when it was at the height of its glory and powerful in patronage, for the purpose of asserting the principles which he considered just and right, and essential for the welfare of Pennsylvania. When he left the powerful Democratic party he represented the strongest Democratic congressional district in the State; and through his personal efforts

it has now become the Gibraltar of Republicanism. He has ever since been sorely persecuted by the proslavery party, who have used all dishonorable means to detract from his personal character and influence, and in the present canvass he was made the target for their weapons. We are, therefore, rejoiced, not only that David Wilmot is elected a United States Senator, but also that the claims of the noble North have been duly recognized in his election.

It might be said of Greeley's comment, that a man who had organized the republican party in his State, drawn the first republican platform at Philadelphia, headed the Fremont campaign in Pennsylvania, made a whirlwind (if sacrifice) canvass for the governorship to consolidate and continue the new party, and played an important part in the nomination of Abraham Lincoln, had not been even "measurably" out of the political arena, in spite of the judgeship. And during the interval between the senatorial caucuses of January and March, 1861, Wilmot had been engaged in another public service, now historic, even though at the time fruitless and thanklessparticipation in the "Peace Conference" of February, 1861. Its story belongs to the following chapter.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE PEACE CONFERENCE

In an editorial published shortly after the close of the Chicago convention, Horace Greeley suggested a basic difference between the concepts underlying the platform written by Wilmot for the Fremont campaign of 1856, and those actuating the convention that nominated Lincoln, in 1860. "The republican party at Philadelphia, in 1856, confronted a possible temporary evil; in 1860, it stands face to face with an organized despotism which announces its malgovernment and misgovernment to be founded on immutable principles of uniform application. Whereas, therefore, the platform of 1856 is mainly devoted to the question of Kansas, the platform of 1860 covers a broader ground, and rests on the deep-rooted principles of a true democratic government." 1

A more concentrated study of the source of the two platforms favors the supposition that their differences were due to the personal equation rather than to any progressive change in national political conditions. Wilmot had no delusions as to the purpose or permanence of the interests he was fighting; but to him, the slavery-extension issue seemed so overwhelmingly important that he dismissed as untimely, and indeed inexpedient, any discussion or declaration of other matters until the one great point was won.

Nevertheless, Greeley interpreted correctly the mind of a large part of the Union. Multitudes saw, as he did, a formal mobilization of forces on opposite sides of a decisive conflict; and nowhere was this vision more definite or action upon it more direct than in the South. Secession, which had been predicted, or threatened, in case of Fremont's accession to the 1 New York Tribune, May 28, 1860.

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