generally supported Mr. Lincoln. An attempt was made to bring out General Grant as a candidate, but the people felt that he was more useful at the head of the armies; and General Grant, with the good sense which has ever marked his career, and the fidelity and integrity which is equally characteristic, gave no countenance to the movement, but refused to be made the means of dividing the great Union party.*

The National Union Convention met at Baltimore on the 8th of June, and was organized by electing as temporary Chairman, Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge of Kentucky, a stern old Presbyterian Unionist, and its permanent President was Ex-Governor William Dennison of Ohio, one of that band of patriotic Governors of the loyal States, who did so much to strengthen the hands of the President in maintaining the Government, and prosecuting the war. The Convention embodied in its platform an endorsement of the administration of Mr. Lincoln. It pledged the Union party to aid the Government to the utmost, in quelling the rebellion by force of arms-approved the avowed determination of the Government to accept no terms of compromise with the rebels except unconditional surrender, and called upon the administration to prosecute the war with all possible vigor. It resolved that slavery was the cause, and still constituted the strength of the rebellion, and as it was hostile to Republican Government, that justice and National safety demanded its complete extirpation from the Republic; and while approving the anti-slavery acts of Congress and the Proclamation of Emancipation by which a death blow was aimed at this gi gantic evil, the Convention declared in favor of the amendment of the Constitution, which should terminate and forever prohibit slavery within the limits of the Republic. The Convention also resolved, that it approved the employment as Union soldiers of men heretofore held in slavery; and that all men employed in the armies, without regard to color,

* Mr. Lincoln said to a friend in regard to the attempt made to bring General Grant into the field as a candidate for President; "If Grant could be more useful in putting down the rebellion, as President, I would be content. He is pledged to our policy of emancipation, and the employment of negro soldiers; and if this policy is carried out, it won't make much difference who is President." It was evident Mr. Lincoln's heart was fixed upon the result of the war, and not on himself.

should reeeive the full protection of the laws of war; and that any violation of these laws should meet with prompt redress; that the thanks of the American people were due to the soldiers and sailors of the army and navy, and that the Nation owes to those who survive, ample and permanent provision; and that the memories of those who have fallen, should be ever held in grateful remembrance. That the National faith pledged to the redemption of the public debt must be kept inviolate, and for that purpose, economy and rigid responsibility in the public expenditures, and a vigorous and just system of taxation were recommended. The Convention also declared its approval of the position taken by the Government, that the people of the United States could never regard with indifference the attempt of any European power to overthrow by force, or supplant by fraud the institutions of any Republican Government on this continent.

Abraham Lincoln was unanimously nominated for President, and Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, for Vice President. Vice President Hamlin, an able man, of unblemished integrity-ever true and faithful, and entirely unexceptionable, was dropped, and Johnson, from motives of policy, was nominated in his place. Johnson's heroic devotion to the Union cause, his fidelity to the Union when so many proved false, his bold denunciation of treason and traitors in the Senate, had secured him the admiration of the people of the North. But it is believed that if the New England delegates had been unanimously and earnestly in favor of re-nominating Mr. Hamlin, he would have received the nomination. The opposition to him, was based on no public ground, or objection of personal fitness, but arose from the jealousies of several politicians, and from the conviction that it was wiser to take what was called a war Democrat, for Vice President.

Mr. Lincoln gratefully accepted the nomination, and expressed his approval of the platform or declaration of principles of the Convention; especially did he emphasize his cordial approval of the committal of the party to the great Constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery forever throughout the nation.

Such an amendment he declared to be a fitting and necessary conclusion to the final success of the Union cause. He said, with his usual modesty, "I view this call to a second term, in no wise more flattering to myself, than as an expression of the public judgment, that I may better finish a difficult work, in which I have labored from the first, than could any one less severely schooled to the task." Thus the vigorous prosecution of the war, without compromise, to the complete suppression of the rebellion, and the utter extirpation of slavery, became the great issues of the Presidential campaign.

Although first called to meet on the 4th of July, the Democratic Convention met at Chicago on the 20th of August, to which time it had been postponed, and was presided over by Ex-Governor Horatio Seymour of New York. General McClellan was nominated for the Presidency, and George H. Pendleton of Ohio for Vice President. Clement C. Vallandigham having returned North from the rebel lines to which he had been sent, was an active and prominent member, and Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions. Vallandigham, whose sentence by a Military Court, of imprisonment during the war, had been kindly modified by the President, so that his sentence was that he should be sent within the rebel lines, to remain during the war, returned to Ohio, by way of Canada, and immediately became more prominent than ever as a leader of his party. On being interrogated one day, as to whether the Government would re-arrest Vallandigham, Mr. Lincoln said he had not been officially informed of his return, but he added "I am inclined to think his political friends in the North will find him as troublesome and as much of an elephant on their hands, if he has returned, as he has ever been to the Administration. Perhaps the best way to treat him," he added, jocosely, "would be to do as the man did who had been annoyed with a very troublesome wife, and who has been relieved by her absconding, and who by no means desired her return, and who therefore advertises one cent reward for her return. The Government had perhaps better advertise one cent reward for the arrest and return to his place of confinement, of Clement L. Vallandigham."

The second resolution in the platform of the Chicago Convention 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 pretence of military necessity, or war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private rights 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."*

Thus, this great party, in the midst of war, did "explicitly declare," that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war," immediate efforts should be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to a Convention, or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace might be restored on the basis of the federal Union of the States."

The passage of this resolution, destroyed utterly any prospect which the party may have had of being successful. It drove from its support, thousands of war Democrats. The spirit of the resolution was rebuked in the able, and in some parts patriotic letter of General McClellan accepting the nomination. He said:

"The Union must be preserved at all hazards. I could not look in the face of my gallant comrades of the Army and the Navy who have survived so many bloody battles, and tell them that their labors and the sacrifices of so many of our slain and wounded brethren had been in vain, that we had abandoned that Union for which we have so often perilled our lives. A vast majority of the people, whether in the Army and Navy or at home, would, as I would, hail with unbounded joy the permanent restoration of peace, on the basis of the Union under the Constitution, without the effusion of another drop of blood, but no peace can be permanent without Union."

Thus the issues were distinctly made up, to be submitted

* Annual Cyclopedia, 1864, page 793.

to the people at the ballot-box. The Union Republican party were for the most vigorous prosecution of the war to the complete suppression of the rebellion; declaring that no terms of peace should be offered except based upon the unconditional surrender of the rebels; that justice and National safety required the utter and complete extirpation of slavery, the cause of the war, and approving the President's proclamation. The great Union party declared itself in favor of the Constitutional Amendment which should terminate and forever prohibit slavery throughout the Republic. The Democratic party declared the war "a failure," and that peace should be immediately sought through a "National Convention,"or other feasible means.

Such were the momentous issues submitted to the decision of the American people. Then followed one of the most exciting political canvasses ever made in the United States. The people wanted peace, but they believed peace was to come through successful war. They looked for the sun of peace to rise as it did ere long, from some great battle field in Virginia; a battle field on which the hosts of the slaveholding chiefs would be scattered and overthrown. They believed the path to peace was through Richmond, and that its plenipotentiaries were not Vallandigham, nor Seymour, nor Wood; but Grant and Sherman and Sheridan, and Farragut. Such a peace as they would negotiate, would give to the American people, a restored Union, universal liberty, and a continental republic. It would make in fact as in name, one people, and one nation, a territory extending from sunrise to sundown; from the land where water never thaws, to the clime where it never freezes. The people felt that they had in Mr. Lincoln, a Chief Magistrate of clean hands and pure patriotic heart. Unpolished and somewhat rude he might be, but under his rough exterior, they saw the true diamond; the hero, and the Christian statesman.

Early in July 1864, Mr. Chase resigned the position of Secretary of the Treasury. He had been as has been stated, a very distinguished Senator, an able Secretary, and as a leader in the great anti-slavery movement, was as faithful to liberty, as the needle to the pole. But he had the fault of