"Why," he asked, "are all the great measures for the public good made to give place to the emergency of passing some abstract resolutions on the subject of politics to reverse the Democratic platform, under the supposition that the representatives of the people are men of weak nerve who are going to be frightened by the thunders of the Senate Chamber ?" Davis rejoined, that they wanted a new article in the creed because they could not get an honest construction of the platform as it stood.

"If you have been beaten on a rickety, double-construed platform, kick it to pieces, and lay one broad and strong, on which men can stand." "We want nothing more than a simple declaration that negro slaves are property, and we want the recognition of the obligation of the Federal Government to protect that property like all other." A somewhat restrained undertone of personal temper had been running through the debate, and Jefferson Davis could not resist an expression of contempt for his opponent.
"The fact is," said he, "I have a declining respect for platforms.

I would sooner have an honest man on any sort of a rickety platform that you could construct, than to have a man I did not trust on the best platform which could be made." Douglas promptly called attention to the inconsistency of Davis's method of forcing his resolutions with one breath and avowing his indifference to a platform with another, especially as Yancey and his own followers had seceded on the platform and not on the man; but he did not press his adversary to the wall, as he might have done, on the insincerity which Davis's sneer exposed.

He was hampered by his own attitude as a candidate.

Douglas, who had received 150 votes at Charleston, and who expected the whole at Baltimore, could not let his tongue wag as freely as Davis, who had received only one vote and a half at Charleston, and could count on none at Baltimore; else he might have denounced him on the score of patriotism.