The Great Conspiracy, Volume 6Logan, John Alexander
History
The Great Conspiracy, Volume 6
Logan, John Alexander
Slavery -- United States; United States -- Politics and government -- 1861-1865
On the 29th of August, the Democratic National Convention met at
Chicago. Horatio Seymour was its permanent President; that same
Governor of New York whom the 4th of July, 1863, almost at the moment
when Vicksburg and Gettysburg had brought great encouragement to the
Union cause, and when public necessity demanded the enforcement of the
Draft in order to drive the Rebel invader from Northern soil and bring
the Rebellion speedily to an end--had threateningly said to the
Republicans, in the course of a public speech, during the Draft-riots at
New York City: "Remember this, that the bloody, and treasonable, and
revolutionary doctrine of public necessity can be proclaimed by a mob as
well as by a Government. * * * When men accept despotism, they may have
a choice as to who the despot shall be!"
In his speech to this Democratic-Copperhead National Convention,
therefore, it is not surprising that he should, at this time, declare
that "this Administration cannot now save this Union, if it would."
That the body which elected such a presiding officer,--after the bloody
series of glorious Union victories about Atlanta, Ga., then fast leading
up to the fall of that great Rebel stronghold, (which event actually
occurred long before most of these Democratic delegates, on their
return, could even reach their homes)--should adopt a Resolution
declaring that the War was a "failure," was not surprising either.
That Resolution--"the material resolution of the Chicago platform," as
Vallandigham afterward characters it, was written and "carried through
both the Subcommittee and the General Committee" by that Arch-Copperhead
and Conspirator himself.--[See his letter of October 22, 1864, to the
editor of the New York News,]
It was in these words: "Resolved, That this Convention does explicitly
declare as the sense of the American People, that after four years of
failure to restore the Union by the experiment of War, during which,
under the pretense of a military necessity, or War-power higher than the
Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every
part, and public Liberty and private right alike trodden down and the
material prosperity of the Country essentially impaired--Justice,
Humanity, Liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts
be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate
Convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that at
the earliest practicable moment Peace may be restored on the basis of
the Federal Union of the States."
With a Copperhead platform, this Democratic Convention thought it
politic to have a Union candidate for the Presidency. Hence, the
nomination of General McClellan; but to propitiate the out-and-out
Vallandigham Peace men, Mr. Pendleton was nominated to the second place
on the ticket.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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