. When it is known that the whole burden of his speeches
has been to stir up men against the prosecution of the war, and that in
the midst of resistance to it he has not been known in any instance to
counsel against such resistance, it is next to impossible to repel the
inference that he has counseled directly in favor of it.
With all this before their eyes, the convention you represent have
nominated Mr. Vallandigham for governor of Ohio, and both they and
you have declared the purpose to sustain the national Union by all
constitutional means. But of course they and you in common reserve to
yourselves to decide what are constitutional means; and, unlike the Albany
meeting, you omit to state or intimate that in your opinion an army is a
constitutional means of saving the Union against a rebellion, or even to
intimate that you are conscious of an existing rebellion being in progress
with the avowed object of destroying that very Union. At the same time
your nominee for governor, in whose behalf you appeal, is known to you
and to the world to declare against the use of an army to suppress the
rebellion. Your own attitude, therefore, encourages desertion, resistance
to the draft, and the like, because it teaches those who incline to desert
and to escape the draft to believe it is your purpose to protect them, and
to hope that you will become strong enough to do so.
After a short personal intercourse with you, gentlemen of the committee,
I cannot say I think you desire this effect to follow your attitude; but
I assure your that both friends and enemies of the Union look upon it in
this light. It is a substantial hope, and by consequence a real strength
to the enemy. If it is a false hope, and one which you would willingly
dispel, I will make the way exceedingly easy.
I send you duplicates of this letter in order that you, or a majority of
you, may, if you choose, indorse your names upon one of them and return it
thus indorsed to me with the understanding that those signing are thereby
committed to the following propositions and to nothing else:
1. That there is now a rebellion in the United States, the object and
tendency of which is to destroy the National Union; and that, in your
opinion, an army and navy are constitutional means for suppressing that
rebellion;
2. That no one of you will do anything which, in his own judgment,
will tend to hinder the increase, or favor the decrease, or lessen the
efficiency of th
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