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Why the War Has Failed.

The abolitionists, unable to truthfully represent the position of the democracy even where they have the bald realities of paper and ink to refute their lies, everywhere proclaim that the Chicago platform declares the war a failure. They use this "argument" particularly with the soldiers, to whom they endeavor to make it appear that the democrats charge them with cowardice.

The Chicago platform nowhere declares the war a failure. The democrats are the last men to depreciate the glory and the value of the splendid victories won by those noble democratic soldiers, McClellan, Sherman, and their comrades at Antietam, at Atlanta and Vicksburg; and everybody ought to know full well that under the management of anybody but a blind and fanatic abolitionist, or an imbecile bigot, such victories ought to have resulted in some benefit to our cause. The Chicago platform declares that the wary, under Lincoln's insane and wicked policies, has failed to restore the Union; and is this not true? Are we to all appearance any nearer the end than when the first Bull Run battle was fought?

It is precisely because the war is not a failure, that the democratic party arraigns Abraham Lincoln for official misconduct and imbecility. Had the soldiers and sailors failed in their duty — had that noble old Farragut been defeated at New Orleans, and our armies repulsed at Vicksburg and Atlanta — had the rebel forces generally defeated the federal armies — then we could not blame Abraham Lincoln for the failure to restore the Union. But on the contrary, after four years of desperate fighting; after the splendid successes at New Orleans, at Hilton Head, at Vicksburg, Memphis, Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Stone River, Chattanooga, Antietam, Gettysburg, and Atlanta, we find ourselves no nearer the end for which the nation took up arms than we were at the beginning. This is not the fault of the army, but of Lincoln; it is his fault because he has not co-operated with the people, who were fighting to restore the Union, while he was waging war to abolish slavery. The people are battling for a return of peace and prosperity; Lincoln is carrying on the war to re-elect himself. It is for this reason that the war is a failure.