means, while peaceable propositions are most clearly and perfectly hopeless unless they are backed and supported by success in war. Do you see the absurdity of this? The Union must be restored; we failed in restoring it by war; it must be restored by peaceable means; peaceable propositions cannot succeed unless backed and supported by warlike successes; but the experiment of war must be given up. This is the policy of your leaders. [Laughter.] In adopting this policy your leaders either knew what they were doing, or they did not know it. If they did not know it, they were men without sense; if they did know it, they were men without honesty. My Democratic friends, are they in either case fit to guide you? [Laughter and applause.]
But let us examine the premises upon which they built such singular conclusions. Is the war really a failure? Pardon me, if I deem it useless to go into details in order to answer that question. Only three years ago the rebellion commanded almost every foot of ground and every seaport south of the Ohio and the Potomac, and now, of this immense territory, all but one-third is in our hands. [Applause.] Only three years ago the armies of the rebellion were so strong that the gentleman who is now the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, while in command of our largest army, always complained that the rebels, wherever he met them, were much too strong for him. [Laughter.] Where are they now? Reduced to two armies, one behind the entrenchments of Petersburg, unable to move, and the other, Hood's, on a raiding excursion in Tennessee; and the latter, I apprehend, will soon be at a loss how to move quickly enough. [Great laughter and cheers.] The war a failure when the tidings of victory come upon us in torrents, borne by the whirlwinds of Atlanta and the Shenandoah Valley? [Repeated cheers.]
