lly had one, though Captain
Rynders must have brought many in his following who richly deserved it.
Mr. Belmont, being chosen to represent the Democracy of Mammon, did
little more than paraphrase in prose the speech of that fallen
financier in another rebellious conclave, as reported by Milton:--

"How in safety best we may
Compose our present evils, with regard
Of what we are and were, dismissing quite
All thoughts of war."

But we turn from the momentary elevation of the banker, to follow the
arduous labors of the Committee on Resolutions.[4] The single end to
be served by the platform they were to construct was that of a bridge
over which their candidate might make his way into the White House.
But it must be so built as to satisfy the somewhat exacting theory
of construction held by the Rebel emissaries at Niagara, while at the
same time no apprehensions as to its soundness must be awakened in the
loyal voters of the party. The war plank would offend the one, the
State Rights plank excite the suspicion of the other. The poor fellow
in AEsop, with his two wives, one pulling out the black hairs and the
other the white, was not in a more desperate situation than the
Committee,--MacHeath, between his two doxies, not more embarrassed. The
result of their labors was, accordingly, as narrow as the pathway of
the faithful into the Mahometan paradise,--so slender, indeed, that
Blondin should have been selected as the only candidate who could hope
to keep his balance on it, with the torrent of events rushing ever
swifter and louder below. It might sustain the somewhat light Unionism
of Mr. Pendleton, but would General McClellan dare to trust its fragile
footing, with his Report and his West Point oration, with his record,
in short, under his arm? Without these documents General McClellan is a
nobody; with them, before he can step on a peace platform, he must eat
an amount of leek that would have turned the stomach of Ancient Pistol
himself. It remained to be seen whether he was more in favor of being
President than of his own honor and that of the country.

[4] The _Platform of the Chicago Convention_ was published
in the public journals 30th August.

The Resolutions of the Chicago Convention, though they denounce various
wrongs and evils, some of them merely imaginary, and all the necessary
results of civil war, propose only one thing,--surrender. Disguise it
as you will, flavor it as y