point where it could join in prediction of Lincoln's re-election. It did
so by throwing the blame on the Democratic platform adopted at the party
convention in Chicago, which, so it represented, had cast away an
excellent chance of success by declaring for union first and peace
afterwards. Since the convention had met in August this was late
analysis; and as a matter of fact the convention platform had called for
a "cessation of bloodshed" and the calling of a convention to restore
peace--in substance, for an armistice. But the _Times_[1229] now assumed
temporarily a highly moral and disinterested pose and washed its hands
of further responsibility; Lincoln was likely to be re-elected:

For ourselves we have no particular reason to wish it
otherwise. We have no very serious matter of complaint that
we are aware of against the present Government of America.
Allowance being made for the difficulties of their position,
they are conducting the war with a fair regard to the rights
of neutral nations. The war has swept American commerce from
the sea, and placed it, in great measure, in our hands; we
have supplied the loss of the cotton which was suddenly
withdrawn from us; the returns of our revenue and our trade
are thoroughly satisfactory, and we have received an
equivalent for the markets closed to us in America in the
vast impulse that has been given towards the development of
the prosperity of India. We see a great nation, which has not
been in times past sparing of its menaces and predictions of
our ruin, apparently resolved to execute, without pause and
without remorse, the most dreadful judgments of Heaven upon
itself. We see the frantic patient tearing the bandages from
his wounds and thrusting aside the hand that would assuage
his miseries, and every day that the war goes on we see less
and less probability that the great fabric of the Union will
ever be reconstructed in its original form, and more and more
likelihood that the process of disintegration will extend far
beyond the present division between North and South.... Were
we really animated by the spirit of hostility which is always
assumed to prevail among us towards America, we should view
the terrible spectacle with exultation and delight, we should
rejoice that the American people, untaught by past
misfortunes, have