ed name
under which you were chosen President of the United States.

But there is another grave objection to the McClellan platform adopted
at Chicago. It is its _intentional ambiguity_. The Convention was
composed of unionists and disunionists, of peace and war Democrats, as
they style themselves, and the platform was adapted to suit the views of
both these parties in and out of the Convention. It was a platform upon
which the temple of Janus was to be closed, but with side doors at
either extremity, into one of which the peace men with their olive
branches should enter, and the war men in full military array in the
other, and the lion and the lamb meet together in the centre in cordial
agreement. But, it appears that the war men in this case were only asses
in lions' skins, for in the compromise between antagonistic principles
and candidates, the peace men got far the better of the bargain. While
there were some vague and glittering generalities in favor of the Union,
they were connected with conditions which rendered the destruction of
the Union certain, namely, an armistice and cessation of hostilities,
accompanied by the false and flagitious declaration, calculated to
encourage the enemies of our country at home and abroad, namely, that
the war to suppress the rebellion was a failure. Remember, soldiers,
that the McClellan platform declares that your battles are failures;
that your blood has been shed in vain; that your arms can never crush
the rebellion; that you are inferior in courage to the slave-holding
rebels; that you must admit your defeat, throw down your muskets, return
in disgrace to your homes, disband the army, lay up the navy, recall
Generals Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Meade, and Gilmore, and Admirals
Farragut, Porter, Dupont, Davis, and Winslow, and leave it to the
civilians of Chicago, Vallandigham, Harris, Long, PENDLETON, and others,
to negotiate a peace.

Now what is an armistice? It is defined to be a suspension of the war
for a limited period. There may be conditions added, but none are named
in the McClellan Chicago platform. Of course, then, it means a cessation
of hostilities by land and sea. Indeed, the platform is weaker than
this, for it proposes directly a 'cessation of hostilities,' not by land
only, or by sea only, but, of course, by _both, as the words are
general_. Now then, the blockade of the rebel ports, and the capture or
destruction of blockade runners and their cargoes, is war