The "Union National" convention assembled at Baltimore on June 7, with every State, except those still wholly in possession of the rebels, represented upon its floor. It adopted a platform denouncing any peace by compromise, endorsing the Administration, and demanding the abolition of slavery by constitutional amendment. Abraham Lincoln was renominated for the Presidency, receiving every vote save that of the delegation of Missouri radicals who supported General Grant, and Andrew Johnson was on the first ballot nominated for Vice-President as the representative of the Union men of the South. The response of the masses and the leading papers of the Republican organization to this action was prompt and hearty; but, notwithstanding this encouraging fact, the political horizon grew rapidly darker. General Grant was in that summer fighting a series of bloody battles on and about the banks of the James, whose immediate results were indecisive, the attendant steady reduction of Lee's available force not being then apparent at the North. In like manner, Sherman was forcing his way through the mountainous regions between Chattanooga and Atlanta, winning no great victories and losing thousands of men; the mortal effects of his blows at the rebels are evident now, but could not be seen then. General Early, in July, swept down the Shenandoah and over the Potomac, burning Chambersburg and threatening the defenses of Washington, finally making good his retreat. In the face of this military situation, so encouraging to discontent and so calculated to invite criticism, the premium on gold rose rapidly to its highest war point. This disastrous depreciation of the paper money of the government was materially helped by the unexpected resignation, on June 30, of Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase. Differences of opinion as to some details of department management were assigned as the cause of this step, but its real origin was much deeper, and Mr. Chase's course was universally ascribed, and was undoubtedly due, to lack of sympathy with and confidence in the Administration. The effect of a change in so important a position at such a critical moment was profound, and it gave a powerful stimulus to Republican disaffection. This was followed by the abortive peace negotiations at Niagara Falls with C. C. Clay, J. P. Holcombe and G. N. Sanders. That this was a crafty scheme to place the Administration in a false position before both the North and the South cannot now be doubted. It failed to yield all that its projectors hoped, but it did ensnare Mr. Greeley most disagreeably, and it had the effect of furnishing the enemy with grounds for charging the President with being "hostile to peace except on impossible conditions." It also materially augmented the public restlessness and deepened the vague apprehensions which naturally sprang from such exhibitions of cross-purposes among the leaders of the national cause. Another event