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Excerpt from Letter of Hon.: R. J, Walker, in Favor of the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln It was an unholy ambition, stimulated by party leaders, a thirst for office and emoluments, that rallied under an old party name at Chicago, when the whole people should have been summoned to the rescue. And who met in council at Chicago? Was it the friends of the Union? No, it was Democrats, as they called themselves whether unionists or disunionists. Avowed disunionists constituted a large and influential portion of the Convention (profaning the name of Democrats) that met together at Chicago. Who were Vallandigham and Harris and Long and many other of their compeers, who not only met together at Chicago, but some of whom were received with shouts of applause, and resolutions moved by some of them unanimously adopted. It was a meeting of loyal men and disloyal peace and war men, unionists and disunionists. Every disunionist is a traitor. He is for the overthrow of the Republic, upon the demand of rebels in arms against the Government. Every peace man now on the Chicago McClellan platform is a disunionist and a traitor, because he knows, in his inmost soul, that no peace can be obtained but upon the ultimatum of Jefferson Davis, now officially proclaimed by him through the secretary of state to foreign Governments, namely, the severance of the Union, and the establishment throughout the South of a separate slave-ho ding empire. Most of these peace men openly avow their disunion doctrines, while others attempt to conceal their treason, under the transparent mask of an armistice, a cessation of hostilities, and an ultimate convention of the States, ignominiously declaring, at the. same time, by their platform resolutions at Chicago, that to suppress the rebellion by war has proved a failure. What truly loyal man, by voting for their candidates, will indorse at the polls such a platform as this? It is a surrender of our country's honor it is a capitulation, upon the demand of Southern traitors, whose hands are dripping with the warm life blood of our sons and brothers, and who now boldly and defiantly pledge themselves to foreign Governments, as they always had declared to us, that they will have no peace unless based upon disunion. Did a Democratic Convention ever before receive avowed Disunionists and traitors among its number? Did it ever before trail in the dust the glorious flag of our country? Did it ever agree before, that our flag should be torn down from half the States and territory of the Union, and replaced by a foreign standard, having upon it but one emblazonry the divinity and perpetuity of Slavery? And shall we treat with the Confederate authorities on this basis? No; while we will gladly treat with States and people desiring to return to the Union, with Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet brandishing over our heads the two-edged sword of Slavery and disunion, we will, in the emphatic words of General Jackson, "negotiate only from the mouths of our cannon." General Jackson was, in truth, the father and founder of the Democratic party. Prior to his first nomination in 1823, in the election of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, the parties were known as Federal and Republican. In the fall of 1823, I united with a few friends in calling, at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, the first Democratic meeting, by which General Jackson was nominated as the Democratic candidate for the Presidency of the United States. I offered the resolutions in his favor adopted by that meeting, calling the Democratic State Convention of Pennsylvania which confirmed that nomination in March, 1824. I attended that Convention, as a delegate from Pittsburg, and wrote the address of the Convention to the Democracy of the State and of the Union on that momentous occasion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com"
