The Democratic Alternative

A systematic effort is being made by politicians of the old Democratic school, to create such a feeling in favor of Gen. McClellan, that he can be taken up and run for the next Presidency, on the ground of distinguished services performed for his country.  The cue has been given to the press, and every little pro-slavery sheet at the North – and we presume at the South, so far as they dare give utterance to sentiments laudatory of a Northern commander – is engaged in trumpeting the fame of Gen. McClellan and investing with sublime importance every act he commits.  Further than that, the plans of those his superior in command, where meritorious, are claimed for him, and full credit is given him for their execution.  Now, we would not detract one iota from the justly merited fame of Gen. McClellan, but the effort to hoist him before the public as the military man of the age, skilled in all the elements of Generalship, for a sinister object, is so transparent as to be exceedingly repulsive to any one who regards the suppression of the rebellion at the present juncture of paramount importance to plotting for the next Presidency.

The demagogues of the defunct Democratic party have never been in quite so much of a quandary as the present time.  Unless that political organization be resurrected, to them “Othello’s occupation is gone,” and they must turn their peculiar talents into less congenial channels.  The efforts of Vallandigham et al. to reconstruct the party is a failure, so as a last resort they have issued their edict to ‘Tray, Blanche and Sweetheart,’ and curs of low degree, to bark in unison over the prowess of Gen. McClellan, that the honor and glory of war be detached from President Lincoln and wreathe the brow of the young commander on the Potomac.

‘On to Richmond’ is now the cry in good faith, and since the noble Generals and brave men of the West, who have done nearly all the hard fighting, have paved the way for the flower of the American army to advance, there will be little difficulty in reaching the whilom capital of the old Dominion and the new Confederacy.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, May 14, 1862, p. 2