1864] Lincoln re-elected President. 579 orators and newspapers declared that, by the terms of the memorandum which he sent to Niagara, the President was rejecting offers of peace in order to force the abolition of slavery through a continuation of the war. This allegation, joined to criticism of the conduct of the war, opposition to the emancipation policy, denunciations of the Draft Law, outcry against the arrest of Vallandigham, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, constituted a somewhat formidable array of campaign arguments that were employed with an unusual bitterness of tone and violence of speech. The earnest championship with which the Democrats of Ohio had devoted themselves to the cause of Vallandigham was, how- ever, repaid by that inveterate partisan with a most serious injury to the prospects and chances of his political friends. In June, 1864, he returned from Canada to the United States in defiance of the order of banishment against him, and once more began to make speeches full of ill-concealed treason against the government. The authorities took no measures against him, except to direct that he should be closely watched, rightly judging that his intemperate zeal would do the Administration more good than harm. When, at the end of August, 1864, the National Convention of the Democratic party met at Chicago, the prominence which the Ohio leaders had given Vallandigham secured him the position of chairman of the Committee on Resolutions. Against the protest of the cooler heads in the committee he succeeded in embodying in the platform a resolution, "That this Convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war... justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of 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." In view of the inflexible demand for independence, constantly main- tained and so recently reiterated with emphasis by Jefferson Davis, this resolution meant nothing less than a surrender of the contest, and an acceptance of disunion. The convention immediately thereafter nominated General McClellan as the Democratic candidate for President. The general saw clearly enough that the platform upon which he was called to stand was fatal to his chances, and he framed his letter of acceptance in language substantially repudiating the Vallandigham declaration. His disavowal however had little effect. From that time, aided by Sherman's capture of Atlanta, the Republican party was able to maintain a vigorous aggressive; and the Democratic platform and candidate met signal defeat at the election of November 8, 1864. The resentment of soldiers in the field, communicated in letters to their homes, and the actual ballots cast by them, under the laws of various States, against the ignominious surrender proposed by the OH. XVIII. QiJ
