Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

[361] than ever inflamed the people of the South before; that it had quenched the last sentiment of respect that lingered in their breasts for the United States Government; that it would unite them more resolutely than ever, and make it to the individual interest of every person in the bounds of the Confederacy to sustain and strengthen it with every dollar and every arm, and every prayer, and every energy of manly virtue and Christian encouragement.

The effect of the proclamation in the North was to strengthen the Opposition; and the preliminary announcement of emancipation in September, 1862, was undoubtedly a main element of success in the Democratic triumphs in the fall elections of that year. The gains of the Democratic party at this time were the subject of great concern to those in power at Washington. In the face of a majority of 107,000 against them in 1860, the Democrats had carried the State of New York. The metropolis of New York was carried by a Democratic majority of 31,000-a change of 48,000 votes in twelve months. Within the great States of New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, the results of the popular elections were a more or less emphatic avowal of opposition to the schemes of those who were using the power of the Government for narrow and sectional and despotic purposes. The significance of these elections was not only confined to the issue of emancipation. A large portion of the Northern people pronounced against the entire policy of Mr. Lincoln's Administration. They condemned that relic of the worst times of French tyranny, the lettres de cachet; they raised their voices against irresponsible arrests; they complained of the small measure of success in the war, and the disappointment of the hopes of the people in this regard; and while protesting against the edict of emancipation, they reminded Mir. Seward of his declaration, made on the 10th March, 1862, in a letter to Mr. Adams in London, that such a measure “would re-invigorate the declining insurrection in every part of the South.”

On the 15th December, 1862, Mr. Cox, Democratic member from Ohio, in a speech in the House of Representatives, described the condition of the North, and exhibited a bill of particulars against Mr. Lincoln's Administration, which may be taken as a declaration of the principles and views of his party. He stated that the present cost of the war to the North was $1,000,000 per day, which was not being replaced; for all that was spent in. war was, by the laws of economy, a loss to those who spend it, as a mere pecuniary transaction, and not counting ultimate and moral results. He declared that since Mr. Lincoln's Administration came into power there had been lost to the country, merely as a matter of business, not counting debt and taxes of a national or State character, at least three hundred millions in the destruction of property, interference with established business, increase in wages, spoliation of railroads, depots, produce, corn, wheat,