In the elections of 1863, the peace Democracy of Ohio and other States sustained defeats which have no parallel in our political history. But, notwithstanding their reverses, the year 1864, the year of the presidential election, found the Ohio leaders possibly sadder, but certainly not wiser nor more patriotic than before.
At the National Convention at Chicago, in August, Mr. Pendleton was nominated for vice-president, Judge Thurman was a delegate of the State of Ohio at large, and Mr. Vallandigham as a district delegate, and as a member of the committee on platform, was the author of the following resolution adopted by the convention:
"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 pretense of military necessity, or war power higher than the constitution, the constitution has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private rights have been 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 all 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."
This resolution does not seem to require explanation or comment. But as General McClellan's letter accepting the nomination for president did not square well with this part of the party platform, Mr. Vallandigham, in a speech at Sidney, Ohio, September 24, 1864, explained it at some length. In that speech, he said:
"I am speaking now of the fact that this convention pronounced this war a failure, and giving you the reasons why it is a failure.... What has been gained by this campaign? More lives have been lost, more hard fighting has been done, more courage has been exhibited by the Federal as well as the Southern soldiers than in any former campaign, and what has been accomplished? General Grant is nearer to Richmond, occupying a territory of perhaps eleven miles, which was not in the possession of the United States when the campaign began, from City Point to the suburbs of Petersburg. To secure that he gave up all the country from Manassas down to Richmond and a large part of the valley.... How about the Southern campaign? General Sherman, through the courage of the best disciplined, best organized, and most powerful army that has been seen since the campaigns of the first Napoleon, has taken Atlanta—a town somewhat larger than Sidney. It has cost him sixty thousand men and four or five months of the most terrible campaign ever waged on this continent or any other, or any other part of the globe. He occupies from two to five miles on each side of a railroad of one hundred and thirty-eight miles in length. He has penetrated that far into Georgia. What has been surrendered to obtain that? All of Texas, nearly all of Louisiana, nearly all of Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and a part of Tennessee, which were in possession of the Federals on the first of May. Kentucky has been opened to continual incursions of the Confederate armies. All this has been surrendered in order to gain this barren strip of country on the line of the railroad. The war, then, has been properly pronounced a failure in a military point of view. The convention meant that it has failed to restore the Union, and there is not a Republican in the land who does not know it."
In the Sidney speech, Mr. Vallandigham says, also:
"What will you have now? Four years more of war? What guaranties of success have you? Do you want two million more of men to go forth to this war as the Crusaders went to the sepulcher at Jerusalem? The beginning of this administration found us with very little debt, comparatively no taxation, and peace and happiness among the States; and now look at the scene! Four more years of war, do you tell me, when the first four, with every advantage, has failed? Now, too, that the hearts of one-half of the people are turned away from war, and intent upon the arts of peace? What will be the consequence? Four thousand millions more of debt, five hundred millions more of taxation, more conscriptions, more calls for five hundred thousand men, more sacrifices for the next four years. All this is what Abraham Lincoln demands of you in order that the South may be compelled not to return to the Union, but to abandon slavery."
All this logic, this eloquence, this taxing the imagination to portray the horrors of war, failed to deceive the people; Lincoln was re-elected; the war went on, and a few short months witnessed the end of the armed rebellion, and the triumph of liberty and of Union.
Now came the work of reconstruction. The leaders of the Peace Democracy, who had failed in every measure, in every plan, in every opinion, and in every prediction relating to the war, were promptly on hand, and with unblushing cheek were prepared to take exclusive charge of the whole business of reorganization and reconstruction. They had a plan all prepared—a plan easily understood, easily executed, and which they averred would be satisfactory to all parties. Their plan was in perfect harmony with the conduct and history of its authors and friends during the war. They had been in very close sympathy with the men engaged in the rebellion, while their sympathy for loyal white people at the South was not strong, and they were bitterly hostile to loyal colored people both North and South. Their plan was consistent with all this.
According to it, the rebels were to be treated in the same manner as if they had remained loyal. All laws, State and National, all orders and regulations of the military, naval, and other departments of the government, creating disabilities on account of participation in the rebellion, were to be repealed, revoked, or abolished. The rebellious States were to be represented in Congress by the rebels without hindrance from any test oath. All appointments in the army, in the navy, and in the civil service, were to be made from men who were rebels, on the same terms as from men who were loyal. The people and governments in the rebellious States were to be subjected to no other interference or control from the military or other departments of the general government than exists in the States which remained loyal. Loyal white men and loyal colored men were to be protected alone in those States by State laws, executed by State authorities, as if they were in the loyal States.