articipation in the proceedings was met with
objection. He had not spoken more violently and offensively against
President Lincoln and against the conduct of the war than some other
members of the convention, but his course had been so notorious and
had been rendered so odious by his punishment, both in being sent
beyond the rebel lines and afterwards in being defeated for governor
of his State by more than one hundred thousand majority, that many of
the delegates were not content to sit with him,--a sentiment which Mr.
Vallandingham is said to have considered one of mawkish sentimentality,
but one to which he deferred by quietly withdrawing from all
participation in the proceedings. It was believed, and indeed openly
asserted, at the time, that if he had chosen to remain the attempt to
eject him by resolution, as was threatened, would have led to a
practical dissolution of the convention.

The work of the convention was embodied in a long series of resolutions
reported by Mr. Cowan of Pennsylvania, and an address prepared and read
by Mr. Henry J. Raymond. Both the resolutions and the address simply
emphasized the issue already presented to the country by the
antagonistic attitude of the President and Congress. In the
resolutions, in the address, and in all the speeches, the one refrain
was the right of every State to representation in Congress. The
convention challenged the right of Congress to deny representation to
a State, for a single day after the war was ended and submission to
the National authority had been proclaimed throughout the area of the
Rebellion. In every form in which the argument could be presented,
they disputed the right of power to attach any condition whatever to
the re-admission of the rebel States to a free participation in the
proceedings of Congress. One of the resolutions declared that
"representation in the Congress of the United States or in the
Electoral College is a right recognized by the Constitution as abiding
in every State and as a duty imposed upon its people, fundamental in
its nature and essential to the exercise of our republican
institutions; and neither Congress nor the General Government has any
authority or power to deny the right to any State, or withhold its
enjoyment under the Constitution from the people thereof; and we call
upon the people of the United States to elect to Congress, as members
thereof, none but men who admit this fundamental right of
representati