The Great Conspiracy, Volume 6 by John Alexander Logan
page 91 of 100 (91%)
page 91 of 100 (91%)
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essential to the preservation of the Nation, and as within the
provisions of the Constitution; the Measures and Acts which he has adopted to defend the Nation against its open and secret foes; that we approve, especially, the Proclamation of Emancipation, and the employment, as Union soldiers, of men heretofore held in Slavery; and that we have full confidence in his determination to carry these and all other Constitutional Measures essential to the salvation of the Country, into full and complete effect." Thus heartily, thoroughly and unreservedly, endorsed in all the great acts of his Administration--and even more emphatically, if possible, in his Emancipation policy--by the unanimous vote of his Party, Mr. Lincoln, although necessarily "chagrined and disappointed" by the House-vote which had defeated the Thirteenth Amendment, might well feel undismayed. He always had implicit faith in the People; he felt sure that they would sustain him; and this done, why could not the votes of a dozen, out of the seventy Congressional Representatives opposing that Amendment, be changed? Even failing in this, it must be but a question of time. He thought he could afford to bide that time. On the 29th of August, the Democratic National Convention met at Chicago. Horatio Seymour was its permanent President; that same Governor of New York whom the 4th of July, 1863, almost at the moment when Vicksburg and Gettysburg had brought great encouragement to the Union cause, and when public necessity demanded the enforcement of the Draft in order to drive the Rebel invader from Northern soil and bring the Rebellion speedily to an end--had threateningly said to the Republicans, in the course of a public speech, during the Draft-riots at New York City: "Remember this, that the bloody, and treasonable, and revolutionary doctrine of public necessity can be proclaimed by a mob as |
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