The _Sun_ supported McClellan, praising him for his repudiation of the plank in the Democratic platform which declared the war a failure; but in the last days of the campaign it was frank in its predictions that Lincoln would be elected. On the morning after election it had this to say: The reelection of Abraham Lincoln announces to the world how firmly we have resolved to be a free and united people. After the assassination of President Lincoln the _Sun_ said: In the death of Mr. Lincoln the Southern people have lost one of the best friends they had at the North. He would have treated them with more gentleness than any other statesman. From him they would have obtained concessions it is now almost impossible for our rulers and people to grant. The _Sun’s_ attitude toward the copperheads and deluded pacifists of the North is reflected in an editorial article published on June 5, 1863. The North was then in its worst panic. Only a month previously Lee had defeated Hooker at Chancellorsville, and the victorious Confederates were marching through Maryland into Pennsylvania. At a mass-meeting in Cooper Union, George Francis Train and other copperheads denounced the war, praised Vallandigham, of Ohio, who had been banished into the South for his unpatriotic conduct, and declared for “peace and reunion.” It was largely a Democratic meeting, but the _Sun_ would not stomach the disloyal outburst: The fact that over ten thousand people assembled in and about Cooper Union on Thursday evening to listen to speeches and adopt an address and resolutions prepared under that “eye single to the public welfare,” discloses the ease with which a few political tricksters may present false issues to the unthinking and, in the excitement of the moment, induce their hearers to applaud sentiments that, when calmly considered, are unworthy of a great and free people. Taking advantage of the blunders of the present administration, these self-styled Democrats raise their banners and, under the guise of proclaiming peace, in reality proclaim a war upon those very principles it is the highest boast of every true Democrat to acknowledge. The Democratic party is essentially the peace party of the present rebellion; but it will sanction no peace that is obtained by compromising the vital principles that give force to our form of government. They will not ask for peace at the expense of the Union, and desire no Democratic victories that do not legitimately belong to them as an expression of the confidence of the people in their fidelity to the Union and the Constitution.