Democrats walked out over a platform dispute, led by the extreme pro-slavery "Fire-Eater" William Lowndes Yancey and the Alabama delegation: following them were the entire delegations of Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas, three of the four delegates from Arkansas, and one of the three delegates from Delaware. Six candidates were running: Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois, James Guthrie from Kentucky, Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter from Virginia, Joseph Lane from Oregon, Daniel S. Dickinson from New York, and Andrew Johnson from Tennessee, while three other candidates, Isaac Toucey from Connecticut, James Pearce from Maryland, and Jefferson Davis from Mississippi (the future president of the Confederate States) also received votes. Douglas, a moderate on the slavery issue who favored "popular sovereignty", was ahead on the first ballot, but was 56½ votes short of securing the nomination. On the 57th ballot, with Douglas was still ahead, but 51½ votes short of the nomination, the exhausted and desperate delegates agreed on May 3 to cease voting and adjourn the convention. While the Democrats convened again at the Front Street Theater in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 18, 110 Southern delegates (led by "Fire-Eaters") boycotted the convention or walked out after the convention informed them they would not adopt a resolution supporting extending slavery into territories whose voters did not want it. While some considered Horatio Seymour a compromise candidate for the National Democratic nomination at the reconvening convention in Baltimore, Seymour wrote a letter to the editor of his local newspaper declaring unreservedly that he was not a candidate for either spot on the ticket. After two ballots - the 59th ballot overall - the remaining Democrats nominated Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois for president. The election would now pit Lincoln against his longtime political rival, whom Lincoln had lost to in the Illinois senate race just two years earlier. That two candidates were from Illinois showed the importance of the West in the election. While Benjamin Fitzpatrick from Alabama was nominated for vice president, he refused the nomination. After the convention concluded with no vice presidential nominee, Douglas offered the vice presidential nomination to Herschel V. Johnson from Georgia, who accepted. Southern Democratic Party nomination Southern Democratic candidates: John C. Breckinridge, Vice President of the United States Daniel S. Dickinson, former senator from New York Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, senator from Virginia Joseph Lane, senator from Oregon Jefferson Davis, senator from