The Daily Dispatch: September 19, 1864., [Electronic resource]

If the platform of the Chicago Convention was not sufficiently explicit for the satisfaction of the Black Republican leaders, they can certainly find no room for doubt in General McClellan's letter of acceptance. His position is defined with the frankness of a soldier. It is, in a word, that "the Union is the one condition of peace."

General McClellan proposes to conduct the war in a civilized manner. He will not make it an abolition war. These are the only points in which he differs from Mr. Lincoln. Whether even in these there would be much practical difference, is not certain.--But admitting that, if elected, the war would be conducted as all modern nations conduct war, and that slavery would be unmolested, still we should have the war. Now, in regard to slavery, it seems impossible to make our position clear to the Northern understanding. For the ten thousandth time we repeat, we are not fighting for slavery. The right to say whether we shall retain that species of property, sold to us for a fair consideration by the New Englanders and Old Englanders, is, it is true, a right we cannot concede. The property itself is not more sered in our eyes than any other kind of property.

There was a time, before the days of abolition, when, in the border States, we were seriously discussing the question of its profitableness. For aught we know, it might have ceased to exist by our own act-before this time but for abolition interference. We are not fighting for this property now, but we have the right to say what we shall do with our property, and, among other rights, that is openly assailed by Mr. Lincoln. He denies us all rights, this included; he denies us, in short, the right of self-government, which is all, and includes all, we are fighting for. We are fighting, not to hold slaves, but to be free ourselves.