The Democratic convention opened on August 29 in Chicago. Delegates to this convention represented nearly everybody who was opposed to President Abraham Lincoln and wanted the war to end, except the Radical Republicans who opposed Lincoln because he was not waging harsher war against the South. Confederates were fully aware that the candidate nominated at this convention could negotiate a peace with them that might lead to their independence. The Confederates therefore dispatched 60 operatives to Chicago from Colonel Jacob Thompson’s spy network based in Toronto.
The Democrats had delayed their convention for over two months in hopes that the Federal war effort would stagnate enough so that voters would turn to them to end the costly conflict. But the Democrats did not have the momentum they were hoping for. The fact that Richmond remained uncaptured worked in their favor, but the imminent fall of Atlanta and the sensational victory at Mobile Bay did not.
While the Democrats were united in opposition to Lincoln, they were deeply divided on other issues. The War Democrats wanted to continue the war until the Union was restored, while the Copperheads (i.e., Peace Democrats) wanted to end the war immediately, even if it meant Confederate independence. As Lincoln saw it, “They must nominate a Peace Democrat on a war platform, or a War Democrat on a peace platform; and I personally can’t say that I care much which they do.”
The Peace Democrats seemed to outnumber the war faction at the convention, as delegates cheered the playing of “Dixie” and offered little enthusiasm for Federal war tunes. But both sides agreed on two things: abolishing slavery should not be a war aim, and Lincoln and the Republicans had ruined the country.
Convention Chairman August Belmont announced, “Four years of misrule by a sectional, fanatical, and corrupt party had brought our country to the verge of ruin. The past and present are sufficient warnings of the disastrous consequences which would befall us if Mr. Lincoln’s re-election should be made possible by our want of patriotism and unity.” An Iowa delegate declared, “With all his vast armies Lincoln has failed, failed, failed, and still the monster usurper wants more victims for his slaughter pens.” Former Pennsylvania Governor William Bigler said:
“The termination of democratic rule in this country was the end of peaceful relations between the States and the people. The men now in authority, through a feud which they have long maintained with violent and unwise men at the South, because of a blind fanaticism about an institution in some of the States, in relation to which they have no duties to perform and no responsibilities to bear, are utterly incapable of adopting the proper means to rescue our country from its present lamentable condition.”
New York Governor Horatio Seymour, a staunch opponent of the Lincoln administration, spoke of the president and his advisors:
“They were animated by intolerance and fanaticism, and blinded by an ignorance of the spirit of our institutions, the character of our people, and the condition of our land. Step by step they have marched on to results from which at the outset they would have shrunk with horror; and even now, when war has desolated our land, has laid its heavy burdens upon labor, and, when bankruptcy and ruin overhand us, they will not have the Union restored unless upon conditions unknown to the Constitution…
“This Administration cannot now save the country if it would. It has placed obstacles in its pathway which it cannot overcome. It has hampered its own freedom of action by unconstitutionalities… The Administration cannot save the Union. We can. We demand no conditions for the restoration of the Union. We are shackled with no hates, no prejudices, no passions. We wish for fraternal relations with the people of the South. We demand for them what we demand for ourselves, the full recognition of the rights of the States.”
The delegates adopted their party platform on the convention’s second day. Clement L. Vallandigham, the former Ohio congressman exiled by Lincoln for encouraging men to avoid the draft, chaired the resolutions subcommittee responsible for writing the party platform. It was resolved:
“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, during which, under the pretense 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, 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.”
This was greatly influenced by the Peace Democrats, and it indicated that the party wanted peace above all else, including reunion. The delegation declared, “That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to preserve the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired.” As such, they condemned the Republicans’ “administrative usurpation of extraordinary and dangerous powers not granted by the Constitution,” which included arresting political dissidents, implementing martial law, suspending habeas corpus, and infringing on the right to bear arms.
The delegates noted the Lincoln administration’s “shameful disregard” of “our fellow citizens who now are, and long have been, prisoners of war in a suffering condition.” This was a criticism of the administration’s refusal to exchange prisoners of war because the Confederacy would not exchange black troops. Consequently, Federal prisoners languished in overcrowded and diseased prison camps like Andersonville.
The delegates next debated who their presidential nominee should be Some Peace Democrats firmly refused to endorse any candidate “with the smell of war on his garments.” Several peace candidates were suggested, including former Connecticut Governor Thomas Seymour, Horatio Seymour, and New York Congressman Fernando Wood. Other potential candidates included L.W. Powell of Kentucky and former President Franklin Pierce.
But the frontrunner was former General-in-Chief George B. McClellan. According to Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, “It has for some days been evident that it was a foregone conclusion and the best and only nomination the opposition could make… McClellan will be supported by War Democrats and Peace Democrats, by men of every shade and opinion; all discordant elements will be made to harmonize, and all differences will be suppressed.”
Peace Democrats initially objected to McClellan, but his backers assured them that “the General is for peace, not war… If he is nominated, he would prefer to restore the Union by peaceful means, rather than by war.” Before the convention had begun, McClellan made his views clear: “If I am elected, I will recommend an immediate armistice and a call for a convention of all the states and insist upon exhausting all and every means to secure peace without further bloodshed.”
Having written the party platform, the Peace Democrats agreed to allow the War Democrats to nominate McClellan. He received 174 votes on the first ballot, with Thomas Seymour garnering 38 and Horatio Seymour 12. Horatio Seymour announced he would not accept the nomination and was dropped. McClellan received 202 1/2 votes on the next ballot, and Vallandigham moved that his nomination be made unanimous. This motion was met with “a whirlwind of applause.”
To balance the ticket, George H. Pendleton of Ohio was nominated for vice president. Pendleton had opposed the war and voiced sympathy for the Confederacy. Rumors quickly spread that McClellan was so embarrassed by the peace platform that he would refuse to endorse it. But a Confederate operative informed President Jefferson Davis: “I’m glad to assure you, McClellan is pledged to peace… It all means peace–let the South go, so they all understand it.”
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