The Administration, therefore, I regard as a civil and military failure, and its avowed policy ruinous to the North in every point of view. Mr. Lincoln may wish the end--peace and freedom--but he is wholly unwilling to use the means which can secure that end. If Mr. Lincoln is re-elected I do not expect to see the Union reconstructed in my day, unless on terms more disastrous to liberty than even disunion would be. If I turn to General Fremont, I see a man whose first act would be to use the freedom of the negro as his weapon; I see one whose thorough loyally to democratic institutions without regard to race, whose earnest and decisive character, whose clear-sighted statesmanship and rare military ability justify my confidence that in his hands all will be done to save the state that foresight, skill, decision, and statesmanship can do. Generals Fremont and Cochrane promptly accepted the nominations thus tendered them. General Fremont resigned his commission in the army before doing so, and in his letter of acceptance accused the Administration of "incapacity and selfishness," of "managing the war for personal ends," of giving to the country "the abuses of a military dictation without its unity of action and vigor of execution," and of "feebleness and want of principle" in its dealings with other powers. He further vindicated the Cleveland action by declaring that, "if Mr. Lincoln had remained faithful to the principles he was elected to defend, no schism could have been created," and added: "If the convention at Baltimore will nominate any man whose past life justifies a well-grounded confidence in his fidelity to our cardinal principles, there is no reason why there should be any division among the really patriotic men of the country." There was a lack of any popular response to this demonstration, and it at once appeared--and, in fact, this was the sum of the original expectations of its shrewder promoters--that this movement was only formidable as a rallying point for any serious disaffection which might spring up in the future.