Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/167

 during its sessions a few extracts are here given to show the character of the utterances which received the loudest applause. Rev. Chauncey Burr of New Jersey said:

“The South could not honorably lay down her arms, for she was fighting for her honor. Two millions of men had been sent down to the he slaughter pens of the South, and the army of Lincoln could not again be filled, neither by enlistment nor conscription. If I ever uttered a prayer, it was that no one of the States of the Union should be conquered and subjugated.”

Henry Clay Dean of Iowa said:

“For over three years Lincoln has been calling for men, and they have been given. But with all the vast armies placed at his command he has failed. Such a failure had never been known. Such destruction of human life had never been seen since the destruction of Sennacherib by the breath of the Almighty. And still the monster usurper wants more men for his slaughter pens. Ever since the usurper, traitor and tyrant has occupied the Presidential chair, the Republican party has shouted ‘War to the knife, and the knife to the hilt.’ Blood has flowed in torrents; and yet the thirst of the old monster is not quenched. His cry is for more blood.”

Judge Miller of Ohio said:

“There is no real difference between a war Democrat and an Abolitionist. They are links of one sausage, made out of the same dog.”

C. L. Vallandigham wrote the platform adopted by the Convention, which made the following declarations:

“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 a pretense of military necessity of a war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private rights 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 the ultimate convention of all 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.”