and other arguments had their desired effect. President Lincoln, after his re-election did make such overtures to the rebel authorities, and if nothing more was accomplished, it showed the people that peaceable means would be used to restore the Union, and if these should fail, they would continue to resort to arms with increased vigor, until such time as the voice of reason and of peace could be heard. True it was, that men and States which claimed to be Democratic went into rebellion against the government of our Fathers, but the same is true of those in the South who had opposed the Democracy during the best years of their lives, so that one is equally to blame with the other; but the teachings, and principles, and traditions of the Democratic party were never opposed to the Union. It is a foul slander upon the party and upon the memory of its best and greatest men; and no one, not a demagogue, or a mere politician, dishonest, and intending to deceive, or totally ignorant of the real facts, should ever think of making so grave and groundless a charge.'

The next resolution declared:

2 That the direct interference of the military authority of the United States in the recent elections held in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and Delaware, was a shameful violation of the Constitution; and the repetition of such acts in the approaching election will be held as revolutionary,

and resisted with all the means and power under our control."

Next comes a resolution clearly defining the aim and object of the Democratic party during the war for the suppression of the Southern rebellion, which is as follows:

3. That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to preserve the Federal Union, and the rights of the States unimpaired; and they hereby declare that they consider the administrative usurpation of extraordinary and dangerous powers not granted by the Constitution, the subversion of the civil by the military law in the States not in insurrection, the arbitrary military arrest, imprisonment trial and sentence of American citizens in states where civil law existed in full force, the suppression of freedom of speech and of the press, the denial of the right of asylum, the open and avowed disregard of state rights, the employment of unusual test oaths, and the interference with, and denial of the right of the people to bear arms in their defense, as calculated to prevent a restoration of the Union, and the perpetuation of a government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.

4. That the shameful disregard of the administration to its duty, in respect to our fellow citizens who now are, and long have been, prisoners of war, in a suffering condition, deserves the severest reprobation, on the score alike of public policy and common humanity.

5. That the sympathy of the Democratic party is heartily and earnestly extended to the soldiery of our army, and the sailors of our navy, who are or have been in the field, and on the sea under the flag of their country; and, in the event of our attaining power, they will receive all the care, and protection regard and kindness that the brave soldiers of the Republic have so nobly earned.”

This was the platform of the Democracy during the war, and have they not faithfully carried out their pledges and avowed purposes ever since? Has a soldier ever suffered any diminution of his pensions, because they have term after term held the popular branch of Congress in their hands; if anything, have they not exceeded in generosity towards the soldiers and sailors of the Union army, those of their opponents, though sometimes a majority of their members of Congress came from the States once in rebellion? Let the history of legislation in this particular, furnish a complete refutation of the charge, that they have been in any sense the enemy of the soldiers for the Union.

CHAPTER IX.

THE DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM OF 1868.

NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION, NEW YORK, JULY 4TH, 1868 -RESOLUTIONS IN RELATION TO THE CONDITION OF AFFAIRS AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR-ARRAIGNMENT OF THE RADICAL PARTY PRESIDENT JOHNSON COMMENDED

CHASE AND THE TRIAL OF IMPEACHMENT.

CHIEF JUSTICE

"THE Democratic party in National Convention assembled, reposing its trust in the intelligence, patriotism, and discriminating justice of the people, standing upon the Constitution as the foundation and limitation of the powers of the government and the guarantees of the liberties of the citizen, and recognizing that the questions of slavery and secession as having been settled for all time to come by the war or voluntary action of the Southern States in Constitutional Conventions assembled, and never to be revived or re-agitated, do, with the return of peace, demand,

1. Immediate restoration of all the States to their rights in the Union under the Constitution, and of Civil Government to the American people.

2. Amnesty for all past political offences, and

the regulation of the elective franchise in the States by their citizens.

3. Payment of all public debt of the United States as rapidly as practicable—all money drawn from the people by taxation, except so much as is requisite for the necessities of the Government, economically administered, being honestly applied to such payment; and where the obligations of the Government do not expressly state upon their face, or the law under which they were issued does not provide that they shall be paid in coin, they ought, in right and justice, to be paid in the lawful money of the United States.

4. Equal taxation of every species of property according to its real value, including government bonds and other public securities.

5. One currency for the Government and the people, the pensioner and the soldier, the producer and the bondholder.

6. Economy in the administration of the Government, the reduction of the standing army and the navy, the abolition of the Freedman's Bureau, and all political instrumentalities designed to secure negro supremacy; simplification of the system and discontinuance of inquisitorial modes of assessing and collecting internal revenue; that the burden of taxation may be equalized and lessened, and the credit of the Government and the currency made good; the repealing of all enactments for enrolling the State militia into National forces in time of