, while he thus did homage to existing prejudices,
hoped that the Thunderer would remember him if he ever came into power
again, so the Chicago Convention compliments the prevailing warlike
sentiment of the country with a soldier, but holds the civilian quietly
in reserve for the future contingencies of submission. The nomination
is a kind of political _What-is-it?_ and voters are expected, without
asking impertinent questions, to pay their money and make their own
choice as to the natural history of the animal. Looked at from the
Northern side, it is a raven, the bird of carnage, to be sure, but
whitewashed and looking as decorously dove-like as it can; from the
Southern, it is a dove, blackened over for the nonce, but letting the
olive-branch peep from under its wing.

A more delicate matter for a convention, however, even than the
selection of candidates, is the framing of a platform for them to stand
upon. It was especially delicate for a gathering which represented so
many heterogeneous and almost hostile elements. So incongruous an
assemblage has not been seen since the host of Peter the Hermit,
unanimous in nothing but the hope of plunder and of reconquering the
Holy Land of office. There were War Democrats ready to unite in peace
resolutions, and Peace Democrats eager to move the unanimous nomination
of a war candidate. To make the confusion complete, Mr. Franklin
Pierce, the dragooner of Kansas, writes a letter in favor of free
elections, and the maligners of New England propose a Connecticut
Yankee as their favorite nominee. The Convention was a rag-bag of
dissent, made up of bits so various in hue and texture that the
managers must have been as much puzzled to arrange them in any kind of
harmonious pattern as the thrifty housewife in planning her coverlet
out of the parings of twenty years' dressmaking. All the odds and ends
of personal discontent, every shred of private grudge, every resentful
rag snipped off by official shears, scraps of Rebel gray and leavings
of Union blue,--all had been gathered, as if for the tailoring of
Joseph's coat; and as a Chatham Street broker first carefully removes
all marks of previous ownership from the handkerchiefs which find their
way to his counter, so the temporary chairman advised his hearers, by
way of a preliminary caution, to surrender their convictions. This,
perhaps, was superfluous, for it may be doubted whether anybody
present, except Mr. Fernando Wood, ever lega