"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 of a war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right 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.
"That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to preserve the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired."
On the first ballot, Gen. George B. McClellan was nominated for President, receiving two hundred and two and a half votes, against twenty-three and a half for Thomas H. Seymour, of Connecticut. George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, an ultra-peace man, was nominated for Vice-President. General McClellan, in his letter of acceptance, virtually set aside a portion of the platform, and said: "The reëstablishment of the Union, in all its integrity, is and must continue to be the indispensable condition in any settlement.... No peace can be permanent without Union."
The declaration that the war had been a failure received a crushing comment the day after the convention adjourned; for on that day Sherman's army marched into Atlanta. And this success was followed by others—notably Sheridan's brilliant movements in the valley—all of which, when heralded in the Republican journals, were accompanied by the quotation from the Democratic platform declaring the war a failure. General Frémont withdrew from the contest in September, saying in his published letter:
"The policy of the Democratic party signifies either separation or reëstablishment with slavery. The Chicago platform is simply separation; General McClellan's letter of acceptance is reëstablishment with slavery. The Republican candidate is, on the contrary, pledged to the reëstablishment of the Union without slavery; and, however hesitating his policy may be, the pressure of his party will, we may hope, force him to it. Between these issues, I think no man of the Liberal party can remain in doubt; and I believe I am consistent with my antecedents and my principles in withdrawing—not to aid in the triumph of Mr. Lincoln, but to do my part toward preventing the election of the Democratic candidate."
The canvass was exceedingly bitter, especially in the abuse heaped upon Mr. Lincoln. The undignified and disgraceful epithets that were applied to him by journals of high standing were not such as would make any American proud of his country. This course had its culmination in the publication of certain ghastly pictures of returned prisoners, to show what Lincoln—the usurper, despot, and tyrant, as they freely called him—was doing by not disregarding "nigger soldiers" and continuing the exchange of whites. They constantly repeated the assertion with which they had greeted the Emancipation Proclamation, that the war had been wickedly changed from one for the preservation of the Union into one for the abolition of slavery. On the other hand, the Republican press freely accused the Democratic party of desiring the success of secession—which was not true. Aside from all patriotic considerations, that party had the strongest reasons for wishing to perpetuate the Union, because without the Southern vote it was in a minority. There were many members of that party, however, who, while they by no means desired the destruction of the Union, believed it was inevitable, and thought the sooner the necessity was acknowledged the better.
One of the most effective arguments of the canvass was furnished in a condensed form by one of Mr. Lincoln's famous little stories, and in that form was repeated thousands of times. Answering the address of a delegation of the Union League, a day or two after his nomination, he said: "I have not permitted myself to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded in this connection of the story of an old Dutch farmer, who once remarked to a companion that 'it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams.'" There was singing in the canvass, too, and some of the songs rendered by glee-clubs every evening before large political meetings were very effective. One of the most notable had been written in response to the President's call for three hundred thousand volunteers, and bore the refrain,
"We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!"
Much of the popular parlor music of the time consisted of songs relating to the great struggle, prominent among which were "Tenting on the Old Camp-Ground" and "When this Cruel War is over." At the South, as at the North, there had been an outburst of lyric enthusiasm at the beginning of the war, which found expression in "My Maryland," the "Bonnie Blue Flag," and "Dixie;" but the spirit that inspires such poems seems to have died out there after the war had been in progress two or three years, when its terrible privations were increasing every day.