, declare
that "this Administration cannot now save this Union, if it would."
That the body which elected such a presiding officer,--after the bloody
series of glorious Union victories about Atlanta, Ga., then fast leading
up to the fall of that great Rebel stronghold, (which event actually
occurred long before most of these Democratic delegates, on their
return, could even reach their homes)--should adopt a Resolution
declaring that the War was a "failure," was not surprising either.

That Resolution--"the material resolution of the Chicago platform," as
Vallandigham afterward characters it, was written and "carried through
both the Subcommittee and the General Committee" by that Arch-Copperhead
and Conspirator himself.--[See his letter of October 22, 1864, to the
editor of the New York News,]

It was in these words: "Resolved, That this Convention does explicitly
declare as the sense of the American People, that after four years of
failure to restore the Union by the experiment of War, during which,
under the pretense of a military necessity, or War-power higher than the
Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every
part, and public Liberty and private right alike trodden down and the
material prosperity of the Country essentially impaired--Justice,
Humanity, Liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts
be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate
Convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that at
the earliest practicable moment Peace may be restored on the basis of
the Federal Union of the States."

With a Copperhead platform, this Democratic Convention thought it
politic to have a Union candidate for the Presidency. Hence, the
nomination of General McClellan; but to propitiate the out-and-out
Vallandigham Peace men, Mr. Pendleton was nominated to the second place
on the ticket.

This combination was almost as great a blunder as was the platform--than
which nothing could have been worse. Farragut's Naval victory at
Mobile, and Sherman's capture of Atlanta, followed so closely upon the
adjournment of the Convention as to make its platform and candidates the
laughing stock of the Nation; and all the efforts of Democratic orators,
and of McClellan himself, in his letter of acceptance, could not prevent
the rise of that great tidal-wave of Unionism which was soon to engulf
the hosts of Copperhead-Democracy.

The Thanksgiving-services