ntention, and from that understanding
of them which the journals of his own faction clearly indicated by
their exultation or their silence, according as they favored
Confederacy or Union, is to prepare a deception for one of the parties
to the bargain. In such cases, which is commonly cheated, the
candidate, or the people who vote for him? If the solemn and deliberate
language of resolutions is to be interpreted by contraries, what rule
of hermeneutics shall we apply to the letter of a candidate? If the
Convention meant precisely what they did not say, have we any assurance
that the aspirant has not said precisely what he did not mean? Two
negatives may constitute an affirmative, but surely the affirmation of
two contradictory propositions by parties to the same bargain assures
nothing but misunderstanding.

The resolutions were adopted with but four dissenting votes; their
meaning was obvious, and the whole country understood it to be peace on
any conditions that would be condescended to at Richmond. If a nation
were only a contrivance to protect men in gathering gear, if territory
meant only so many acres for the raising of crops, if power were of
worth only as a police to prevent or punish crimes against person and
property, then peace for the mere sake of peace were the one desirable
thing for a people whose only history would be written in its
cash-book. But if a nation be a living unity, leaning on the past by
tradition, and reaching toward the future by continued aspiration and
achievement,--if territory be of value for the raising of men formed to
high aims and inspired to noble deeds by that common impulse which,
springing from a national ideal, gradually takes authentic shape in a
national character,--if power be but a gross and earthy bulk till it be
ensouled with thought and purpose, and of worth only as the guardian
and promoter of truth and justice among men,--then there are
misfortunes worse than war and blessings greater than peace. At this
moment, not the Democratic party only, but the whole country, longs for
peace, and the difference is merely as to the price that shall be paid
for it. Shall we pay in degradation, and sue for a cessation of
hostilities which would make chaos the rule and order the exception,
which would not be peace, but toleration, not the repose of manly
security, but the helpless quiet of political death? Or shall we pay,
in a little more present suffering, self-sacrifice, and earn