government and the
reduction of their States to conquered provinces under the control of
Congress. The milk and water policy of Lincoln is both a civil and a
military failure, and his renomination would be the greatest calamity
which could befall our Nation!"

A week later the regular party convention met at Baltimore. On the night
before this meeting the President's renomination was not certain.

On every hand his enemies were assailing him with unabated fury. Every
check to the National arms was laid at his door--every mistake of civil
or military management. The ravages of the Confederate cruisers which
were built in England and had swept the seas of our commerce were blamed
on him. He should have called Great Britain to account for these
outrages and had two wars instead of one!

The cost of the great struggle mounting and mounting into billions was
his fault. The draft might have been avoided with the Government in
abler hands. The emancipation policy had not freed a single negro and
driven the whole Democratic Party into opposition to the war. His Border
State policy had held four Slave States in the Union, but crippled the
moral power of his position as anti-Slavery man. Every lie, every
slander of four years were now repeated and magnified.

A competent man must be put into the White House. The Rail-splitter must
go!

The real test of strength would come in the secret meeting of the Grand
Council of the Union League--the Secret Society which had been organized
to defeat the schemes of the Knights of the Golden Circle. In this
meeting men will say exactly what they think. In the big convention
to-morrow all will be harmony and peace. The convention will do what
these powerful leaders from every State in the North tell them to do.

The assembly is dignified and orderly. The men who compose it are the
eyes and ears and brains of the party they represent. They are the real
rulers of the Nation. The party will obey their orders. These are the
men who do the executive thinking for millions. The millions can only
reject or ratify their wills. We are a democracy in theory, but in
reality here is assembled the aristocracy of brains which constitutes
our government.

The Grand President Edmunds raps for order and faces a crowd of keen,
intelligent leaders of men his equal in culture and will.

The meeting is called for but one purpose. With swift, direct action the
battle begins. A friend of the President offers