were not fully persuaded that Slavery and State Eights are merely
the counters, and that free institutions are the real stake, they might
be deluded with the hope of compromise. But there are things that are
not subjects of compromise. The honor, the conscience, the very soul of
a nation, cannot be compromised without ceasing to exist. When you
propose to yield a part of them, there is already nothing left to
yield.

And yet this is all that the party calling itself Democratic, after
months of deliberation, after four years in which to study the popular
mind, have to offer in the way of policy. It is neither more nor less
than to confess that they have no real faith in popular
self-government, for it is to assume that the people have neither
common nor moral sense. General McClellan is to be put in command of
the national citadel, on condition that he immediately offers to
capitulate. To accept the nomination on these terms was to lose, not
only his election, but his self-respect. Accordingly, no sooner was the
damaging effect of the platform evident than it was rumored that he
would consent to the candidacy, but reject the conditions on which
alone it was offered. The singular uniform, half Union-blue and half
Confederate--gray, in which it was proposed by the managers at Chicago
to array the Democratic party, while it might be no novelty to some
camp-followers of the New York delegation familiar with the rules of
certain of our public institutions, could hardly be agreeable to one
who had worn the livery of his country with distinction. It was the
scene of Petruchio and the tailor over again:--

_Gen. McC._ "Why, what, i' th' Devil's name, tailor, call'st
thou this?"

_Committee._ "You bid me make it orderly and well,
According to the fashion and the time."

_Gen. McC._ "Marry, I did; but, if you be remembered,
_I did not bid you mar it to the time._"

Between the nomination and acceptance came the taking of Atlanta,
marring the coat to the time with a vengeance, and suggesting the
necessity of turning it,--a sudden cure which should rank among the
first in future testimonials to the efficacy of Sherman's lozenges. Had
General McClellan thrust the resolutions away from him with an honest
scorn, we should have nothing to say save in commendation. But to
accept them with his own interpretation, to put upon them a meaning
utterly averse from their plain i