t; and he made a long speech devoted
to that end.

On the second day the Committee on Resolutions reported the Cincinnati
platform without addition or qualification. There was something grim
and grotesque in the now demonstrated purpose of the Democratic
Convention to accept the platform which Mr. Greeley had constructed
with especial regard for the tender sensibilities of the Liberal
Republicans. While the Democrats as a body had persistently opposed
emancipation, and regarded it as a great political wrong, the party now
resolved to maintain it. Hostile throughout all its ranks to any
improvement in the status of the negro, they now determined in favor
of his "enfranchisement." Resisting at every step the passage of the
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution,
they now resolved to "oppose any re-opening of the questions that have
been settled" by the adoption of these great changes in the organic
law. With the Southern States dominant in the Convention, their
delegates (all former slave-holders and at a later period engaged in
rebellion in order to perpetuate slavery) now resolved with docile
acquiescence to "recognize the equality of all men before the law; and
the duty of the Government, in its dealings with the people, to mete
out equal and exact justice to all, of whatever _nativity, race,
color_, or persuasion, religious or political."

The Confederate leaders, still sore and angry over their failure to
break up the Union, now declared that they remembered "with gratitude
the heroism and sacrifices of the soldiers and sailors of the
Republic," and that no act of the Democratic party "should ever detract
from their justly earned fame, nor withhold the full reward of their
patriotism." Hitherto viewing the public debt as the price of their
subjugation, they now declared that "the public credit must be sacredly
maintained;" and they heartily denounced "repudiation in every form
and guise." In their determination to make a complete coalition with
the other wing of Mr. Greeley's supporters, the Confederate Democrats
determined to accept any test that might be imposed upon them, to
endure any humiliation that was needful, to assert and accept any and
every inconsistency with their former faith and practice. It is
somewhat interesting to compare the platform to which the Democrats
assented in 1872 with any they had ever before adopted, or with the
record of their senators and repres