“Constitutional Union Party”

Amos Kendall, a gentleman who for more than a quarter of a century figured extensively in our country as a politician of the Democratic school, but for some years has led a retired life, has commenced the publication of a series of articles in the National Intelligencer on the “Object of the war.” From the initial number we make the following extract addressed to President Lincoln:

“Be assured, sir, that the democratic party of the north, with the exception of a few semi-traitors whom they repudiate, cordially approved the objects of the war against rebellion as declared by you in all your public avowals. They rally around you with a devotion to the cause not exceeded by any class of your original supporters, and they will spare no sacrifice to save the Union and the Constitution.  In this great object they are already consolidated with the great mass of the republican party, and will be among the last to despair.  Indeed these two parties for all present purposes constitute but one, which may be appropriately called the CONSTITUTIONAL UNION PARTY.  The object of this party in the pending war is to preserve the Union and the constitution as it is.  It is the Constitution, and that only, which makes us a nation; destroy it, and the nation will cease to exist, being dissolved into thirty-four independent States.

In the beginning of the war, says Mr. Kendall, some of the Democrats “raised their voices against coercion, and thereby unwittingly rendered material service to the cause of the rebellion.”  Of this class was the Democrat of this city, but it has since shown such a disposition to reform that we feel like forgiving it for its past sins and regarding its present course more the earnest of sincerity than the inclination which some men have to float with the popular current.

In the above extract the aged politician has laid down a platform that will do very well for these war times, as it will sustain both Republicans and Democrats – all the people in fact, but a very few ultra ones, who regard the Constitution and Slavery as synonyms.

As the rebel States have forfeited all claim on the Government and voted themselves out of the republic, they should be taken on their own action and be received again only on the footing of territories.  The “Constitutional Union Party” are not in favor of having the property of Northern Union men sold to pay the onus of debt entailed upon the country by the scoundrelism of Southern rebels; but advocate the policy of letting those who inflicted the debt be made to pay it to the last farthing.  We are one of those who believe that the Union, embracing all its original territory, and the Constitution, unimpaired, can be saved and at the same time such measures be adopted as will forever remove from us the course that entailed upon us this war.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 1, 1862, p. 2