t.io?^ / / \ ADDRESSES §foIbkrs' anb §aUm:s' i^tatc te^tntral ^omntittce TO TIIK Soioes tHD hm or PwYivtNii IN FAVOR OF GRANT AND COLFAX. i HEADQUARTERS Soldiers' and Sailors' State Central Committee, PHILADELPHIA, ; 206 South Sevkxtii Street. 1 CHARGES H. T. COLLIS (Hit. Maj. Oen. Vols.). rlu,lrman. A. I. nUSSHLZ (Late .Adjt .;.-n nf Pp„n.vir,ni,,, s.rvHar,,. PHILADKLPTIIA: S H E R M A N & C O., P R I N T K R S. 1868. ADDRESSES OF THE ^olbicrs' anb jailors' ^inte |cntral ^ommitttt TO THE SoiDi[Rs tND SiiioRs OF hmmm, IN FAVOR OF GRANT AND COLFAX. ITEADQUARTERS Soldiers' and Sailors' State Central Committee, philadelphia, 206 South 8eventu Street. CBAJtI.ES a. T. COZZIS (Bvt. Maj. Gen. Vols.), auiirman. A. Z. ItUSSJSZZ (Late Adjt Oen. of PennsyWania), Secretary. PHILADELPHIA: HERMAN & CO., PRINTERS. 1868. 6l( 'OLDIKRS AND ^AILORS OF J'^ENNSYLYANIA. SoUlirrs' aud Sailors' State Central Committee, TuiLADKLPBiA, August 20, 18G8. The committee have tliought it proper to lay before their con- stituents a brief but full statement of the reasons which should induce all loyal American citizens, af the coming Presidential election, to vote for Grant and Colfax ; and, in doing so, they will proceed at once to a discussion of the grave questions to be settled by the decision of the American people, in November next, or by a new rebellion, to be headed by the Democratic nominee' with the advice and assistance of-his co-nominee, General Blair. These reasons will be published from day to day by tlie com- mittee, in a series of addresses. % %,■ ■ ADDRESS No. I WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAR? Mr. Rhett, of South Carolina, a leading rebel, said, after the ordinance of secession was passed by the convention of that State: " 2%; secession of South Carolina is not an event of a day. It is not any t/iijig produced by Mr. Lincoln s election, or by the non- execution of the fugitive slave law. It has been a matter which has been gathering head for thirty years." General Andrew Jackson, our patriotic President, in 1833, said of the Nullifiers and Secessionists of his day : " The tariff was only the pretext, and disunion awif A SOUTHERN CONFliDER- ACY THE REAL OBJECT.' The next pretext will be the negro or slavery question." A prophecy fulfilled by Mr. Calhoun and his pupils and fol- lowers to the very letter. By the resolve of the Cincinnati Convention, in 1856, the Democratic National Convention of 1860 assembled at Charleston on the 23d of April,*^nd after a stormy session, and the secession of eleven Slave States, adjourned to meet at Baltimore on the 18th i of June. The seceders ailjonrned to meet at Richmond on the 11th of June. From the convention at Baltimore other secessions took place, and Stephen A. Douglas was nominated by the adhering members, and John C. Breckinridge by the seceders, as their re- spective candidates for President of the United States, in which last nomination the Richmond seceders acquiesced. Mr. Bell was nominated by a body styled the Union Constitu- tional Convention, wliich met at Baltimore on the 9th of May ; and Mr. Lincoln was nominated by the Republican National Con- vention, which met at Chicago on the I6th of May, 1860. There were, therefore, four Presidential Candidates in the field, two of them belonging to the Democratic party, the pro- slavery wing of which would never coalesce with the supporters of Judge Douglas. To the Democrats of the Slave States it therefore became clear that Mr. Lincoln must be elected in November, and Mr. Keitt, speaking for South Carolina, said : " In my judgment, if the Black Republican party succeeds in the coming election, the Governor should immediately assemble the Legislature, and that body should provide for a State convention, which should protect the State from the dishonor of submission to Black Republican rule." The same sentiment was openly avowed by the leading Demo- . crats in every Slave State, and the Democratic party was sedu- lously prepared for secession, and a forcible dissolution of the Union. On Tuesday, the 6th of November the returns showed that Mr. Lincoln was the ne.xt President of the United States, Governor Gist having expressed in his message to the Legislature of South Caro- lina on that day, the opinion that in that event the only alternative left is the "secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union." On the 7th (the next day) the United States officials resigned at Charleston, and on the 10th the U. S. Senators, Hammond and Chesnut, resigned their seats in the Senate. On the 17th December the ordinance of secession was unanimously adopted, and on the 21st commissioners were appointed to proceed to Washington to treat for the possession of United States Govern- ment property within the limits of South Carolina. On the 24th their representatives in Congress withdrew, and on the 3d of Jan- uary, 1861, the South Carolina commissioners left Washington. On the 1st February seven States had passed ordinances of seces- sion, and withdrawn from the Union. On the 4th February the Confederate Congress met at Mont- gomery, and its president, Howell Cobb, announced that secession "is now a fixed and irrevocable fact, and the separation is perfect, complete, and perpetual." On the 8th the constitution of the pro- visional government was adopted, and on the 18th Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as President. On the 11th March, 1861, the permane7it slave constitution of the Confederate States was signed, and Jefferson Davi.< and Alex- ander H. Stephens became the rebel President and ^'ic■c-Prcsident of a Southern Confederacy whose corner-stone was negro slaver}'. During this whole period, up to the 4th of March, 18(51, Mr. Eucluinan, a Democrat, was President, with a Cabinet of whom, originally, only two were Union men. The Democratic Secretary of the Treasury having injured, to the utmost of his power, the finances and credit of the nation, stole away on the 10th December and became President of the provisional rebel Congress. On the 29th the Democratic Secre- tary of War, who, at tlie instance of Jefferson Davis, filled the Southern arsenals with United States arms for rebel use, resigned, and was followed on the 8th January, 18G1, by the Democratic Secretary of the Interior, whose department had been robbed by a subordinate, while the Democratic Secretary of the Navy, who must have known the intentions of his colleagues, had distributed our naval force on distant stations, from which it would take months to bring them liome. The Democratic Attorney-General advised the President that he had no power to coerce a State, in which opinion the Demo- cratic Executive coincided, and of course took no measures to prevent the robbery of arsenals and mints, the seizure of public vessels, the capture of forts, and the firing on ships of the United States conveying provisions to United States troops in United States forts. The President was an aged man, traitorously deserted by those men whom he had rewarded by the highest offices in his gift, and without a single honest adviser of his original Cabinet, General Cass having resigned as Secretary of State. Southern emissaries swarmed at Washington, postponing, by every device, all measures of the Government tending to counter- act the active and constant preparations for war by the rebel Slave States. Mr. Keitt, in November, 18G0, said : " John Hickman said defiantly, that if we went out of the Union eighteen millions of Union men would bring us back. Let me tell you there are a million of Democrats in the North, who, when the'Black Republi- cans attempt to march upon the South, will be found a wall of fire to the front." [Cries of "That's so," and applause.] And Mr. Durgan said: "It is not true in point of fact, that all the North- ern people are hostile to the rights of the South. We have a Spartan band in every Northern State;" and when we find an ex- President in a private confidential letter to the man who the next year was the rebel President, using the following language, it is not to be wondered at, that the Southern rebels relied on the ac- tive and efficient aid of Northern Democrats. "I do not believe," writes ex-President Pierce from New York to Jefferson Davis at Washington, "that our friends in the South have any just idea of the state of feeling, hurrying at this mo- ment to the pitch of intense exasperation,' between those who re- 2 spect their political obligations and those who have apparently no impelling power but that which fanatical passion on the subject of domestic slavery imparts. Without discussing the question of right, of abstract power to secede, I have never believed that ac- tual disruption of the Union can occur without bloodshed ; and if, through the madness of Northern abolitionism, that dire calamity must come, it will not be along Mason and Dixon's line merely — it will be within our own borders, in our own streets, be- tween the tivo classes of citizens to zvhom I have referred.'" ^ On the 8th of January, 1861, the Mayor of the City of New York, a sound Democrat, said : " It would seem that a dissolution of the Union is inevitable." He then propounds the question whether the city of New York, throwing off its allegiance to the General Government, may not become a free city. "If the Con- federacy is broken up the Government is dissolved, and it be- hooves every distinct community, as well as every individual, to take care of themselves." But as these doctrines savored strongly of treason, the prudent municipal executive added: "But I am not prepared to recommend the violence implied in these views." On the 31st of January, 18G1, a great Democratic convention was held at Albany, composed of the most influential men of the party. On that day and on the ne.xt day seven Slave States had seceded, and four days afterwards the Confederate Congress met, and announced their separation from the Union to be " perfect, complete, and perpetual," and fourteen days afterwards Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as President, under the constitution of the provisional government, adopted on the 8th. The President and both houses of Congress were Democratic, and so was the Supreme Court. The seceders, who had actually levied war, were Democrats, but traitors; while the meeting at Albany was composed of Democrats who in November had voted the Democratic ticket. One of the speakers presented and approved the view of the election of Mr. Lincoln taken by the South Carolina rebels. "The Democratic and Union pa'rty at the North," said he, "made the issue at the last election, with the Republican party, that in the event of their success, and the establishment of their policy, the Southern States not only ivould go out of the Union, BUT WOULD HAVE ADEQUATE CAUSE FOR DOING SO." [Applause.] An acknowledgment which a true patriot and not a mere partisan would have been ashamed to have made. To think that a great party which had governed the country for eight years should consider its defeat, in the election of a Presi- dent, a sufficient cause for the secession of all the Slave States and a permanent dissolution of the L^nion ! The temper of this meeting may be safely estimated by this single miserable partisati avowal. Governor Seymour said, " Revolution has already begun. We are advised by the conservative States of Virginia and Kentucky that if force is to be used it must be exerted against the unitech South." '-Let us also see if successful coercion by the North is LESS REVOLUTiONAiiY than succcssful Secession by the South." After praising the valor and sagacity of the men of the South, he urged the necessity of compromise in language which he repeated even in the last month of the expiring rebellion. " The question is simply this — shall we have compromise after war or compromise without war." Rejecting all idea of coercing the Southern traitors and assuming that their treason must be successful. The milk and water resolutions of this and of similar Demo- cratic meetings in other States, served only to inspirit the Southern rebels, one of whom said to a member' of Congress from New York: "If your President should attempt coercion, he will have more opposition at the North than he can overcome." No Democrat, certainly not Governor Seymour, ever urged President Buchanan to maintain the Constitution by force, if ne- cessary, and in tlie words of the hero of New Orleans, "solemnly proclaim thut tin- r'oiistitutioii and the laws are supreme and the union INDISSolJ III, !■:.•• At Pliilailil|>lii:i. till' 22d February, 18G1, on the solemn raising of the United States flag over Independence Hall, Mr. Lincoln, in reply to an address of welcome by the President of Select Council, used this remarkable language, in relation to the cardinal principle of our great Declaration : " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." "This is a sen- timent," said he, "embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, can the country be saveil on this basis ? If it can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to save it. If it cannot be saved on that basis, it will be truly awful. But if the country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say, / ivould rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it." The night before he had communicated to him a fully authenti- cated account of a conspiracy to assassinate him on the 23d, in Baltimore, on his passage from one railroad depot to the other. A private messenger from General Scott and Mr. Seward corroborated it. Mr. Lincoln was urged to anticipate the day, so as to avoid the danger, but he refused to break his morning engagement in Philadelphia, or his afternoon engagement at Ilarrisburg, and kept both, returned quietly to the city the same evening, took the Wash- ington train, and was in the Capital the morning of the day of his intended assassination. The full account of this atrocious and bloodthirsty conspiracy, disgraceful alike to the traitors in Washington and Baltimore, and their Southern coadjutors, is to be found in the June number of this year, of Harper's 31onthhj, and should be read by every American citizen, that he may form a proper idea of the unparal- leled wickedness of the authors of the rebellion. But this deter- mination to slay was never relinquished, and the lamented Lincoln met his fate when he had crushed the rebellion, and the ingrate Davis was a fugitive from justice. The London Times sent its correspondent, Mr. Russell, in March, 1861, to the United States, and in 1863 he published, what he styled, "My Diary North and South," being, for the most part, " extracts from the diaries and note books whigh he assiduously kept while he was in the L'nited States, as records of the events and impressions of the hour." Referring to a dinner party in New York a few days after his arrival, he says: "The Hon. Horatio Seymour, a former Gov- ernor of the State, was one of the guests;" and adds, "I do not think that any of the guests sought to turn the channel of talk upon politics, but the occasion offered itself to Mr. Horatio Sey- mour to give me his views of the Constitution of the United States, and by degrees the theme spread over the table. There was not a man who maintained the Government had any power to coerce the people of a State, or to force a State to re- main in the Union, or under the action of the Federal Govern- ment ; in other words, the symbol of power at Washington is not at all analogous, to that which represents an established govern- ment in other countries. Although they admitted the Southern leaders had meditated the treason against the L^nion years ago, tJiey could not bring themselves to allow their old opponents, the Republicans now in potoer, TO DISPOSE OF THE ARMED FORCE OF THE UNION against their BROTHER DEMO- CRATS IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. " ^Ir. Seymour is a man of compromise, but his views go far- ther than those which were entertained by his party ten years ago : although secession would produce revolution, it was never- theless ' a right,' founded on abstract principles, which could scarcely be abrogated consistently with due regard to the original compact. "The Democrats behold with silent satisfaction the troubles into which the Republican triumph has plunged the country, and are not at all disposed to extricate them. The most notable way of impeding their efforts is to knock them down with the ' Con- stitution' every time they rise to the surface and begin to swim out." Treason was rife among the ofEcers of the army and navy, who had been educated and supported by the United States, given high rank and large pay in both arms of the service ; and one General in Texas disgracefully betrayed his trust, and turned over his army, with all the posts and fortifications, arms, muni- tions, horses, and equipments, to the rebel authorities : by which most base and treacherous acts the Union lost half its military force,with the State of Texas and the control of the Mexican frontier. In all this tumult of treason, the rank and file of both ser- vices — the soldiers and sailors — stood firm, resisting all the per- suasions of their treacherous commanders to desert the time-hon- ored flag of the Union, under which they had fought and bled, and were ready to meet the traitors whether on the land or'the ocean. Having failed to get Fort Sumter by negotiation, and Alabama being partly repentant, in a discussion at Montgomery, Mr. Gil- christ said to the rebel Secretary of War, in the presence of Jef- ferson Davis : " Sir, unless you sprinkle blood in the face of the people of Alabama, they will be back in the old Union in less than ten days." The next day Beauregard opened his batteries on Sumter, and Alabama was saved to the rebel Confederacy. Major Anderson had moved his whole force of 80 men from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, and after sustaining a bombard- ment of 34 hours capitulated and surrendered the fort on Sunday, April 14, 1861. In the South the news was received with rapturous joy, and the Rebel Secretary of War predicted tliat the rebel secession flag would, before the first of May, float on the dome of the Capitol at Washington, and eventually over Faneuil Hall in Boston. At the North the cfl'ect of this attack and surrender was elec- tric. No sooner had the telegraph communicated the news to the excited citizens in Wall Street than there was but one sentiment, that the insult to our national flag could only be washed out with rebel blood. On Monday, journals that were half rebel became loyal, and in Philadelphia the sturdy mechanics and artisans forced the rebel sympathizers to protect themselves by the flag of the Union. This loyal feeling spread like wildfire through the whole coun- try. The Spartan bands prognosticated by Keitt, Durgan, and the ex-Presidcnt, disappeared for the time, whilst armed aid was proff"ered from every quarter to President Lincoln. Ten States went out of the Union, some of them by fraud and against the express will of the people, and three were kept in the Union, although large bodies of their citizens joined the rebel armies. Mr. Russell went to South Carolina, and there, in familiar in- tercourse with their leading men, he remarks, "Again cropping out of the dead level of hate to the Yankee, grows its climax in the profession from nearly every one of the guests that he would prefer a return to British rule to any reunion with New England." " They afl'ect the agricultural faith and the belief of a landed gen- try. It is not only over the wine-glass — why call it cup ? — that they ask for a prince to reign over thera. I have heard the wish repeatedly expressed within the last two days, that we coulil spare them one of our young princes — but never in jest or in any frive- 3 Ions manner. ' Xot a man, no not one, will ever join the Union again! Thank God,' they say, 'we are freed from that tyranny at last.' "After dinner the conversation again turned on the resources and power of the South, and on the determination of the people never to go back into the Union. Then cropped out again the expression of regret for the rebellion of 1776, and the desire that if it came to the worst, England would receive back her erring children, or give them a prince under whom they could secure a monarchical form of government. There is no doubt of the ear- nestness loith ivhieh these things are said." These were the Southern Democratic friends whom Governor Seymour so lauded but a few weeks before, and whom he would not see coerced into discharging their duties as citizens of the United States : theoretical democrats, but practical monarchists ; and these are the men who would have you believe they were not responsible for the blood of your gallant comrades. ADDRESS No. II. Soldiers' and Sailors' State Central Committee, Philadelphia, August 25, 1868. The committee have endeavored in a previous address to show "Who are responsible for the War." It may now be well for our comrades to consider WHO PROLONGED THE WAR? The reverses of our armies before Eichmond, in the summer of 1862, gave new life to the Peace Democracy, who, in November of that year, elected Mr. Seymour Governor of New York. The victory at Antietam did not abate their ardor, followed as it was by the proclamation of the President on the 22d of Septem- ber, announcing that on the 1st of January, 1863, he would pro- claim freedom to all the slaves in the rebel States. Of the view of Mr. Seymour and his friends in New York, Lord Lyons, in an official despatch to Earl Russell, dated Washington, November 17, 1862, wrote as follows : " On my arrival at New York on the 8th inst., I found the Con- servative (Democratic) leaders exulting in the crowning success achieved by the party in that State. Several of the leaders of the Democratic party sought interviews with me, both before and after the arrival of the intelligence of General McCIella'n's dis- missal. The subject uppermost in their minds, while they were speaking to me, ivas naturalli/ THAT OF FOREIGN MEDIA- 11 TIOX BETWEEN THE NORTH AND THE SUUTII. Many of tliem seemed to tliiiik tliis inediation must come at last, but they appeared to be very much afraid of its coming too soon. It was evident tliat a premature proposal of foreign intervention would afford the Radical party a means of reviving the violent war spirit, and of thus defeating the peaceful plans of the Con- servatives. "At the bottom I thought I perceived a desire to put an end to the war even at the risk of losing the Southern States altogether ; but it was plain it was not thought prudent to avow this desire. Indeed, some hints of it, dropped before the elections, were so ill- received that a strong declaration in the contrary sense was deemed necessary by the Democratic leaders. •' They maintain that the object of the military operations should be to place the North in a position to demand an armistice with honor and effect. The armistice should (they hold) be followed by a convention, in which such changes of the Constitution should be proposed as would give the South ample security on the sub- ject of its slave property. " The more sagacious members of the party must however look upon the proposal of a convention merely as a last experiment to test the possibility of reunion. They are no doubt well aware that the more probable consequence of such an armistice would be the establishment of Southern independence. " It is with reference to such an armistice as they desire to attain that the leaders of the Conservative party regard the ques- tion of foreign mediation." If the Democratic leaders had dared to declare these views, and this trafficking with the representative of Great Britain, they would have been branded as traitors to the Union. Lord Lyons does justice to President Lincoln and the Republican party although using strong language: "The views of that party are clear and definite. They declare there is no hope of reconciliation with the Southern people — that the war must be pursued per fas et nefas, until the disloyal men of the South are ruined and subjugated, if not exterminnted ; that not an inch of the territory of the Republic must be given up; that foreign intervention in any shape must be rejected and resented." A few weeks after the Albany Democratic Convention of Janu- ary 31, 1861, Governor Seymour said to Judge Ruggles, " Have you read the Confederate constitution ? I have, and it is better than ours. Then why not obviate all diflBculty by simply adopting that constitution?" And, after the issuing of President Lincoln's first emancipation proclamation, Mr. Seymour publicly said, " that if the Union could only be maintained by abolishing slavery, then the Union ought to be given up." With these sentiments and these principles, ^Ir. Seymour en- .- tereJ upon the important duties ot (jiovernor of the great State of New York. Mr. Vallandigham, as a member of Congress, had opposed every measure proposed by loyal men to suppress the great rebellion, and President Lincoln, in his reply to the committee of the Ohio Convention, said of him, "At the same time, your nominee for Governor in whose behalf you appeal, is known to you and to the world to declare against the use of an army to suppress tlie rebellion. Your own attitude, therefore, encouraged desertion, resistance to the draft, and the like, because it teaches those inclined to desert and to escape the draft that it is your purpose to protect them, and to hope that you will become strong enough to do so." On the 4th of May, 1863, Mr. Vallandigham was arrested by General Burnside for "declaring disloyal sentiments and opinions with the object of weakening the power of the Government in its efforts to suppress an unlawful rebellion." He was tried bv a court martial and convicted and sentenced to be placed in close confinement in some fortress of the United States during the con- tinuance of the war, which was changed by the President to send- ing him beyond our military lines. The national judiciary de- clined to interfere, and his cause was taken up by a Democratic convention at Albany on the 16th of May, by the Ohio Democratic Convention on the 11 th of June, by a Democratic meeting in the State-house yard at Philadelphia, and by the Democratic°Guber- natorial Convention held at Harrisburg "in the month of June, at the moment the rebel army was marching into Pennsylvania. The President's replies to the Albany and Ohio committees were conclusive and are models of Executive correspondence, courteous, dignified, and keeping strictly to the point. How far Mr. Val- landigham's patriotism justified the exertions of his political friends, to return him from banishment and to elect him Governor of Ohio, an anecdote chronicled in "The Rebel War Clerk's Diary" may illustrate: "June 22, 1863.— To-day I saw the memorandum of Mr. Ould of the conversation held with Mr. Val- landigham for file in the archives. Ee {Mr. Vallandigham) says if we can only hold out this year, that the Peace party of the North would sweep the Lincoln dynasty out of existence. He seemed to have thought that our cause was sinking ?au\ feared we would sub- mit, which, of course, would be ruinous to his party. But he advises strongly against any invasion of Pennsylvania, for that would unite all parties at the North, and so strengthen Lincoln's hands that he would be able to crush all opposition, and trample upon the constitutional rights of the people." The President (Davis) indorsed on it his disagreement as to the invasion of Penn- sylvania. "But," added Mr. Davis, "Mr. Vallandigham is for restoring the Union, amicably, of course ; and if it cannot be so done, then possibly he is in favor of recognizing our independence." Fellow-soldiers and sailors, peruse this carefully, and say whether this gentleman was a patriot or a traitor, and whether the people 13 ^L?fi nf ""' '^"°'' '''?' '''*"" '^'y ^'^'■■'"''^ ''"» fo'- Governor ZTo S ^ ' "^''"''r^. "'^°.'"" r"'^""'^'-'^^'^'/"'"«««'^. tl.e soldiers' vote being nearly solid against him. „.,!\l '''''■'• ''^^" ^1'"' P'-^'ticular as to tl.is gentleman because he tio, ll'^TcT' li '"■""•■^''' "^ "'^ Chicago Democratic Conven! p.e.ulent, Governor Seymour, and the real manager who made Mr Seymour the nominee of the New York Convention. Pendleton 'niritofT'p •■"•%•?"' "'^"^es, whilst Vallandigham, the master- scr;L .;ls J*-- ^— -.V. dictates the nominee and will pkk- n^l^l" l\] '";;='f;°" Of Pennsylvania took place contrary to the New y°, I V''""n^'f •''"'' r^ '^' ^''''''^ New Jerley and tT\} ^'"g,^''^'led "PO" for militia by the General Govern- ment furnished the troops. Governor Seymour addressed a ]ar<.e meeting in the city of New York on the 4th of July, in a .peech evidently carefully prepared some days before, for he said • '^ mPofin " ^'='=''1''^'^ t'.'i« invitation to speak with others at this ,r' '?°;/'\r""' P'^^'f*^ ^''^ ^'^^■"f''" °f Vicksburg. the open- canit.l n, .'"''?P'' ''"' P^u^'^''' '^'^P'"'-^ -^f ^^^^ ConfedeVate ^K' ;,•: K .V-'''r'''°" ?^ 'K*' '■"^«"'""- ^y '-•"°'"'on consent nni.^n « n^K ,''"^ "P°" "'", ^"^ "•'^'^" '^"^ '•'^«"'^« "f the Cam- paign should be known to mark out that line of policy which they fel our country should pursue. But in the motnent of expected Tr, '^!^;";-"?f,™?-g''t cry for help from Pennsylvania tSsa -e Its de.poiled fields from the invading foe ; and almost within sight were hnfr, r?!'""'""' .'"'^^^P?,''^ ^he ships of your merchants weie burned to the water s edge. fopHnl"'' ^''"'''"r ?° P"'''"''f °^ '"' audience by appeals to their feelings, he used the memorable words which nine days afterwards were reool ected and put into practical operation by the infuriated ruffians, who for a short time governed New York, and made it the scene of murderous and unprovoked outrages, until quelled by the strong arm of the Federal Government: ^ ^ -Kemember this, that the bloody and treasonable and revolu- tionary .loctrine of public necessity can be proclaimed by a mob dr.rir K { \S°;7""''"^-'l °" *''" 11"' °f -^"'y '"c knew the diatt Uiich he had denounced as unconstitutional was to be com- menced and he should have anticipated the application of his words by the mob to it. On the 13th the riots commenced; the Gov- ernor was absent at Long Branch, and the Democratic journals used language treasonable in its tendency, and well calculated to mflame the worst passions of rude, unthinking, and unscrupulous men in opposing the laws of their country. rhe tone ami language of Governor Seymour, in his Fourth of July oration, like that of ex-President Pierce, was cold, vacillat- ing, and discoui-aging, prognosticating defeat and ruin in the prosecution of this " fearful, fruitless, fatal civil war." "I speak of this war as fruitless," ' said the ex-President; and after con- u dehining emancipation in the strongest language, and alluding to his advice in 1861 not to resort to arms, he adds: "All that has occurred since then has strengthened and confirmed my convic- tions in this regard. I repeat, then, my judgment impels me to rely upon MORAL FORCE ! ! ! and not upon any of the coercive instrumentalities of military power." When such language is used by a gentleman who had filled the Executive chair for four years as the official head of a great nation, is it surprising that ignorant, misguided, and wicked partisans should have construed his teachings and those of Governor Sey- mour, accompanied by the treasonable outpourings of influential journals, into direct counsel to stop a "fruitless" war by resort to riot and insurrection under the "revolutionary doctrine of pub- lic necessity" ? The riots came and drenched the streets of New York with blood, and were stimulated by Southern emissaries, whose de- clared object was to help Lee and the rebel arms, by withdrawing our veteran troops from the front to battle with Northern rebels in the rear. Governor Seymour addressed the rioters, whose hands were red with innocent blood, with the endearing terms, "My friends," " let me assure. you that I am your friend." " You have been my friends." [Cries of " Yes, that's so ; we are and will be again."] To these quiet, peaceable, orderly citizens, he said : " I wish you to take good care of all property as good citizens, and see that every person is safe. The safe-keeping of property rests with you; and I charge you to disturb neither. It is your duty to maintain the good order of the city, and I know you will do it." This was a draft riot, gotten up as' such, and made the City of New York responsible for property destroyed by the rioters valued at two millions of dollars. It had been proposed to prominent Republicans the day before that if they would promise that the draft should be arrested the riots should thereupon be stopped. Governor Seymour applied to President Lincoln to postpone the draft until after its constitutionality had been adjudged by the courts, asserting that "at least one-half of the people of the loyal States 'believed' that the conscription act, which they are called upon to obey, because it is on the statute-book, is in itself a violation of the supreme constitutional law." ''I do not object," replied the President, "to abide by the de- cision of the Supreme Court, or the judges thereof, on the consti- tutionality of the draft law. In fact, I should be willing to facili- tate the obtaining of it; but I cannot consent to lose the time while it is being obtained. We are contending with an enemy, who, as I understand, drives every able-bodied man into his ranks, very much as a butcher drives bullocks into a slaughter-pen. No time is wasted, no argument is used. This produces an army 15 which will soon turn upon our noiovictoriouB soldiers already in r>'hc P ^f"*" r' ''"^ sustnincd by recruits as they should be. After further (hscussin- the utter impossibility of post- poning the draft, he said: "My purpose is to be, in my action, just and constitutional, and yet practical, in performing the im- portant duty with which I am ciiarged, ./ maintaining the unity and tliejrve principles of our common country." The victory of Gettysburg and the surrender of Vicksburg on the 4th of July, falsihed all the predictions of Pierce and Sey- mour, and demonstrated to these Peace Democrats that the American people were determined to subdue the Democratic rebels ui the ^outh by force of arms, and not by a timid attempt to use moral iorce only, which must have inevitably led, as those distin- guished gentlemen must have known, to the establishment of a Southern Slave Confederacy. The Democratic peace plan w(,uld have dissolved the Union, whilst the Republican plan save.l an.l preserved it entire, not losing one single inch of our territory, or waiving one single con- stitutional power to put down treason and rebellion against the lawful (jovernment of the United States. It seem: almost incredible that with such persistent and trai- torous opposition, the loyal soldiers and sailors should have suc- ceeded in Si ving the nation. ADDRESS No. Ill Soldiers' tinU Sailors' State Central Coimnittee. PuiLA-DELPHiA, Sejitember 1, Iftot Lieutenant-General Grant, our Commander-in-Chief, took com- mand of the Army of the Potomac in the spring o. 1864. On the .5th of May he commenced his march to Richmond, and oy a series of battles and successful movements, placerl his forces, on the 14th of June, across the James Kiver, and invested Peters- burg and Richmond, places which he neve • left until they were captured, with General Lee and his whole army. On the 16th of August, 1864, General Giant wrote to Mr. Washburne : " I state to all citizens who visit me, that all we want now to insure an early restoration of the Union, is a determined senti- ment of unity North. The rebels have notv in their ranks their last man. The little boys and old men are guarding prisoners, guarding railroad bridges, and forming a good part of their garri-' sons for entrenched positions. " A man lost by them cannot be replaced. They have robbed alike the cradle and the grave to get their present force." Mr. Vallandigham, after the advice given by him to Jefferson Davis not to invade Pennsylvania, ran the blockade and went to 1(5 Canada, and resided there until Juno, 18G4, wlien he returned to Ohio. On the 16tli of that month he addressed the Democratic Convention in Hamilton in a most violent harangue, and on the 17th, at Dajton,.in answer to a serenade, announced his inten- tion to keep his mouth shut until after the Democratic National Convention at Chicago. That body met on the 29th of August. . Mr. Vallandigham was one of the Committee on Resolutions, and Governor Seymour was the permanent president of the Conven- tion. AmoHi, the resolutions offered in open convention was one from New York in favor of an armistice, and President Seymour, in his address on taking the chair, uttered no words of patriotic encouragement to our brave soldiers in the field or sailors on the sea, but said to them, " This administration cannot now save this Union if it would." " But if the Administration cannot save this Union, tve can." " In the coming election men must decide with which of the two parties into which our people are divided they will act." '' If they wish for peace they will act with those who sought to aveit the war and who now seek to restore good will and harmony among all sections of our country." This was Peace Democracy as pictured by its present candidate. Now, what was his plan ? We find it officially stated in the second reso- lution of the platform, as adopted by the Convention, in these memorable words, which stick like the shirt of Nessus to the unfor- tunate Democratic Peace Party : " Resolved, That this Convention does e.iplieitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the ex- periment of war, durint; which, under the pretence of a military necessity, or war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired — justice, humanity, libeity, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts he made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate conventionof the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States." We have the history of this resolution from its author, Mr. A'al- landigham, who was really the hero of this Convention. In June, 1863, he said to Mr. Ould, the rebel commissioner, "he thought the rebel cause was sinking, ?im\ feared they would submit, which would of course he ruinous to his imrty." Mr Vallandigham's intercourse with the rebel emissaries in Canada was kept up while in that province, and he was fully aware of the rapidly growing weakness of the rebel Confederacy, and that nothing but an im- mediate armistice which the Democratic leaders had broached to Lord Lyons in November, 1862, could save it from utter and en- tire ruin. In his own words we have his direct avowal of the fact of au- thorship : " Mr. Vallandigham wrote the second, the material resolution of the Chicago platform, and carried it through the sub-committee and the general committee in spite of the most des- perate and persistent opposition on the part of CassiJy and his friends — Mr. Cassidy himself in an adjoining room laborin_.r^GRESS 013 786 525 7, peRmalipe* pH8^ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 013 786 525 7. p€RmalTfe« pH8J