body, subject to the call of the chairman, this criticism does
not seem unreasonable; for permanent conventions have generally been the
beginning of revolution.

[Footnote 7: The third resolution is, 'That the direct interference of
the military authority of the United States in the recent elections held
in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware, was a shameful violation
of the Constitution, and the repetition of such acts in the approaching
election _will be held as revolutionary, and resisted with all the means
and power under our control_.']

THE BALTIMORE PLATFORM.

The Baltimore platform consists of eleven resolutions; and we may
perceive at a glance the important respect in which it differs from the
one adopted at Chicago. That confines itself to criticism and censure of
those who are striving to uphold the Constitution and the Union against
an armed rebellion, which it does not so much as by a single word
condemn. This declares the purpose of the people 'to aid the Government
in quelling by force the rebellion now raging against its authority;' so
that its power shall be felt throughout the whole extent of our
territory, and its blessings be restored to every section of the Union.

It is impossible to overlook this essential distinction of the two
platforms. The one is full of the captious complaint of partisanship,
intent on power, and oblivious of the highest duty of patriotism in this
hour of the country's need; the other recognizes no higher duty now than
the union of all parties for the sake of the Union. The one vainly cries
peace when there is no peace; the other thinks not of peace except in
and through the Union, without which there cannot be peace. Above all,
the one takes us back to the former times of purely party strife, and
seeks to revive the political issues of the past; the other, leaving
'the dead past to bury its dead,' keeps pace with the living present,
and looks forward to a future of glory in a restored and regenerated
Union. For it is folly to suppose there can ever again be 'the Union as
it was.' This is a superficial phrase, which it is marvellous that any
reflecting person can delude himself with. 'The Constitution as it is'
is the motto that condemns it; for under the Constitution we are to have
'a more perfect Union,' as our fathers designed, and so stated in the
Constitution itself. We are to have a constitutional Union in which
every right guaranteed by the Constitution sh