, and
with no aim save to repair the glory and greatness of his country.

But fortunately it is no trial of the personal merits of opposing
candidates on which the next election is to pronounce a verdict. The
men set up by the two parties represent principles utterly
antagonistic, and so far-reaching in their consequences that all
personal considerations and contemporary squabbles become as
contemptible in appearance as they always are in reality. However
General McClellan may equivocate and strive to hide himself in a cloud
of ink, the man who represents the party that deliberately and
unanimously adopted the Chicago Platform is the practical embodiment of
the principles contained in it. By ignoring the platform, he seems, it
is true, to nominate himself; but this, though it may be good evidence
of his own presumption, affords no tittle of proof that he could have
been successful at Chicago without some distinct previous pledges of
what his policy would be. If no such pledges were given, then the
Convention nominated him with a clear persuasion that he was the sort
of timber out of which tools are made. If they were not given, does not
the acceptance of the nomination under false pretences imply a certain
sacrifice of personal honor? And will the honor of the country be safe
in the hands of a man who is careless of his own? General McClellan's
election will be understood by the South and by the whole country as an
acknowledgment of the right of secession,--an acknowledgment which will
resolve the United States into an association for insurance against any
risk of national strength and greatness by land or sea. Mr. Lincoln, on
the other hand, is the exponent of principles vital to our peace,
dignity, and renown,--of all that can save America from becoming
Mexico, and insure popular freedom for centuries to come.

It is the merest electioneering trick to say that the war has been
turned from its original intention, as if this implied that a cheat had
thereby been put upon the country. The truth is, that the popular
understanding has been gradually enlightened as to the real causes of
the war, and, in consequence of that enlightenment, a purpose has grown
up, defining itself slowly into clearer consciousness, to finish the
war in the only way that will keep it finished, by rooting out the evil
principle from which it sprang. The country has been convinced that a
settlement which should stop short of this would be nothing