DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION, 1864.
The Democratic National Convention was held nearly three months after the Republican Convention had renominated Mr. Lincoln, and only two months prior to the election. It had originally been called to meet in Chicago on the 4th of July; but as the time approached, the brighter military prospects and the rekindled national hopes left a darker Democratic outlook, and the assembling of the Convention had been delayed to the 29th of August. Several reasons had combined to secure the selection of this unusually late day. It gave longer opportunity to observe the course of the military campaign, and to take advantage of any unfavorable exigencies; it allowed more time to compose Democratic dissensions; and it furnished more scope for the party, whose chances rested solely upon the degree of popular discontent, to seize upon any disturbed state of the public mind, and turn it to account.
The delay of nearly two months had been accompanied by a marked change in the situation. The advance of the Union cause which had depressed Democratic expectations in the spring, had been succeeded by inactivity and doubts which revived Democratic hopes in August. The postponement which had been ordered that they might avail themselves of any unfavorable course of affairs, thus deluded them into a bold abandonment of all reserve. Changes in the military situation were sometimes sudden and swift. Had the Convention been postponed another week, its tone and action might have been essentially different; for its tumultuous session had scarcely closed before the clouds that hung over the country during the summer were scattered, and our armies entered upon the most brilliant movements and triumphs of the war—triumphs which did not cease until the surrender at Appomattox.
But the Convention assembled at a time of uncertainty if not of gloom and depression. The issue of the great struggle was not yet clear. General Grant, with his unquailing resolution "to fight it out on this line," had cut his way through the Wilderness over the bloody field of Spotsylvania, and against the deadly lines of Cold Harbor. He had fastened his iron grip upon Petersburg, and there the opposing armies were still halting in their trenches. In the Shenandoah Valley, Early was defiant and aggressive. In the West, the delay at Kennesaw, the fall of the heroic McPherson, and other reverses had marked a campaign of slow advances. The assaults upon Mr. Lincoln's Administration had been renewed with increased venom and persistence. Mistaken and abortive peace negotiations with pretended rebel commissioners at Niagara Falls had provoked much criticism and given rise to unfounded charges. The loyal spirit and purpose of the people were unshaken; but there was some degree of popular impatience with the lack of progress, and it was the expectation of the Democratic managers that the restive feeling might be turned into the channel of opposition to the Administration.
The Convention included among its delegates many of the most distinguished leaders of the Democratic party. Massachusetts sent Josiah G. Abbott and George Lunt. The credentials of Connecticut were borne by the positive and aggressive William W. Eaton. Among the representatives of New York were the accomplished Governor Seymour; the acute Dean Richmond; Samuel J. Tilden, who had not yet achieved his national distinction; Sanford E. Church, who afterwards became chief judge of the Court of Appeals; and Ex- Governor Washington Hunt, whose Silver-Gray conservatism had carried him into the Democratic party. Ohio counted on the roll of her delegates William Allen, who had been the contemporary of Webster and Clay in the Senate; George H. Pendleton and Allen G. Thurman, who were yet to take high rank in that body; and Clement L. Vallandigham, just then more prominent with a doubtful celebrity than any one of his abler colleagues. Pennsylvania contributed Ex- Governor Bigler, and William A. Wallace already showing the political talent which afterwards gave him a leading position. The Indiana delegation was led by Joseph E. McDonald, and the Kentucky delegation by Governor Powell, James Guthrie, and by Ex-Governor Wickliffe who had been driven by Mr. Lincoln's anti-slavery policy into the ranks of his most bitter opponents. In ability and leadership the Convention fairly represented the great party whose principles and policy it had met to declare. Besides the accredited delegates, it brought together a large number of the active and ruling members of the Democratic organization. The opposition to the war was stronger in the West than in the East, and the presence of the Convention in the heart of the region where disloyal societies were rife, gathered about it a large and positive representation of the Peace party, which manifested itself in public meetings and in inflammatory utterances.