The Presidential Election.

and with slavery.

Their "platform

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embraced all those who sympathised with the South Their "platform" was simply a treasonable libel on the Government, declaring that, "under the pretence of the military necessity of a 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; and that justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities."

It was, therefore, distinctly understood that the question at stake in this election was, whether the war should be continued. The ultra-Abolition adherents of General Fremont were willing to see a pro-slavery President elected rather than Mr. Lincoln, so great was their hatred of him and of Emancipation, and they therefore nominated their favourite, knowing that he could not be elected, but trusting to divide and ruin the Lincoln party. But this movement came to an inglorious end. A portion of the Republican party offered the nomination for the Presidency to General Grant, which that honourable soldier promptly declined in the most straightforward manner. As the election drew on, threats and rumours of revolution in the North were rife, and desperate efforts were made by Southern emissaries to create alarm and discontent. But such thorough

precautions were taken by the Government, that the election was the quietest ever known, though a very heavy vote was polled. On the popular vote, Lincoln received 2,223,035; M'Clellan, 1,811,754. The latter carried only three states-New Jersey, Delaware, and Kentucky, while all the others which held an election went to Lincoln. The total number admitted and counted of electoral votes was 233, of which Lincoln and Johnson (Vice-President) had 212, and M'Clellan and Pendleton 21.

Of this election, the President said, in a speech (November 10th, 1864)—

"So long as I have been here, I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom. While I am duly sensible to the high compliment of a re-election, and duly grateful, as I trust, to Almighty God for having directed my countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think, for their good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed by the result. May I ask those who have not differed with me to join with me in this spirit towards those who have?"

Those who yet believe that the rebels were in the main chivalric and honourable foes, may be asked what would they have thought of the French, if, during the German war, they had sent chests of linen, surcharged with small-pox venom, into Berlin, under charge of agents officially recognised by Government? What would they have thought of

Atrocious Warfare.

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Germany, if official agents from that country had stolen into Paris and attempted to burn the city. Yet both of these things were attempted by the agents of the Confederate Government-not by unauthorised individuals. On one night, fires were

placed in thirteen of the principal hotels of New York, while, as regards incendiarism, plots were hatched from the beginning in the South to treacherously set fire to Northern cities, to murder their public men, and otherwise make dishonourable warfare, the proof of all this being in the avowals and threats of the Southern newspapers. Immediately after the taking of Nashville by Thomas, the writer, with a friend, occupied a house in that town which had belonged to a rebel clergyman, among whose papers were found abundant proof that this reverend incendiary had been concerned in a plot to set fire to Cincinnati.

In connection with these chivalric deeds of introducing small-pox and burning hotels, must be mentioned other acts of the rebel agents, sent by their Government on "detached service." On the 19th October, a party of these "agents" made a raid into St. Albans, Vermont, where they robbed the banks, and then retreated into Canada. These men were, however, discharged by the Canadian Government; the money which they had stolen was given up to them, as Raymond states, "under circumstances which cast great suspicion upon prominent members.

of the Canadian Government." The indignation I which this conduct excited in the United States is indescribable, and the Canadian Government, recognising their mistake, re-arrested such of the raiders as had not made their escape. But the American Government, finding that they had few friends beyond the frontier, properly established a strict system of passports for all immigrants from Canada.

The year 1864 closed under happy auspices. "The whole country had come to regard the strength of the rebellion as substantially broken." There were constant rumours of peace and reconciliation. The rebels, in their exhaustion, were presenting the most pitiable spectre of a sham government. The whole North was crowded with thousands of rebel families which would have starved at home. They were not molested; but, as I remember, they seemed to work the harder for that to injure the Government and Northern people among whom and upon whom they lived, being in this like the teredo worms, which destroy the trunk which shelters and feeds them.

CHAPTER XII.

The President's Reception of Negroes-The South opens Negotiations for Peace-Proposals-Lincoln's Second Inauguration-The Last BattleDavis Captured-End of the War-Death of Lincoln-Public Mourning.

THE political year of 1865 began with the assem

blage of Congress (December 5th, 1864). The following day, Mr. Lincoln sent in his Message. After setting forth the state of American relations with foreign Governments, he announced that the ports of Fernandina, Norfolk, and Pensacola had been opened. In 1863, a Spaniard named Arguelles, who had been guilty of stealing and selling slaves, had been handed over to the Cuban Government by President Lincoln, and for this the President had been subjected to very severe criticism. In the Message he vindicated himself, declaring that he had no doubt of the power and duty of the Executive under the law of nations to exclude enemies of the human race from an asylum in the United States. He showed an enormous increase in industry and revenue, a great expansion of population, and other indications of material progress; thus practically refuting General Fremont's shameless declaration that