ously adopted. It was a meeting of loyal men and
disloyal, peace and war men, unionists and disunionists. Every
disunionist is a traitor. He is for the overthrow of the Republic, upon
the demand of rebels in arms against the Government. Every peace man now
on the Chicago McClellan platform is a disunionist and a traitor,
because he knows, in his inmost soul, that no peace can be obtained but
upon the ultimatum of Jefferson Davis, now officially proclaimed by him
through the secretary of state to foreign Governments, namely, the
severance of the Union, and the establishment throughout the South of a
separate slave-holding empire. Most of these peace men openly avow their
disunion doctrines, while others attempt to conceal their treason, under
the transparent mask of an "armistice," a "cessation of hostilities,"
and an _ultimate_ "convention of the States," ignominiously declaring,
at the same time, by their platform resolutions at Chicago, that to
suppress the rebellion by war _has proved a failure_. What truly loyal
man, by voting for their candidates, will indorse at the polls such a
platform as this? It is a surrender of our country's honor--it is a
capitulation, upon the demand of Southern traitors, whose hands are
dripping with the warm life blood of our sons and brothers, and who now
boldly and defiantly _pledge themselves_ to foreign Governments, as they
always had declared to us, that they will have no peace unless based
upon disunion. Did a Democratic Convention ever before receive avowed
Disunionists and traitors among its number? Did it ever before trail in
the dust the glorious flag of our country? Did it ever agree before,
that our banner should be torn down from half the States and territory
of the Union, and replaced by a foreign standard, having upon it but one
emblazonry--the divinity and perpetuity of Slavery? And shall we treat
with the Confederate authorities on this basis? No; while we will gladly
treat with States and people _desiring to return to the Union_, with
Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet brandishing over our heads the two-edged
sword of Slavery and disunion, we will, in the emphatic words of General
Jackson, "_negotiate only from the mouths of our cannon_."

General Jackson was, in truth, the father and founder of the Democratic
party. Prior to his first nomination in 1823, in the election of
Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, the parties were known as Federal and
Republican. In the fall of 1823